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In New York, Tuesday marked the beginning of the long awaited trial of hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, who ran the $7 billion Galleon Group and whose personal wealth is estimated at $1.3 billion. He is being prosecuted by the SEC for insider trade deals. Rajaratnam is said to have made $45 million in illegal profits. He has denied the charges and is free on $100 million bond. If he is convicted he could go to prison for as long as 20 years. The SEC historically has been such a handmaiden of the finance business that it's hard to imagine anything serious coming out of its prosecutions, but one never knows.

Whatever happens to Rajaratnam, it  would be simple enough to prosecute many of the high rollers on first civil, then criminal charges, fining them millions of dollars and taking them out of circulation for up to 20 years.

"Contrary to prevailing propaganda, there is a fairly straightforward case that could be launched against the CEOs and CFOs of pretty much every US bank with major trading operation," writes Yves Smith in her popular Naked Capitalism blog. "I'll call them 'dealer banks' or 'Wall Street firms' to distinguish them from very big but largely traditional commercial banks.’’ She proceeds to lay out the case, the key points of which I have excerpted below:

Since Sarbanes Oxley became law in 2002, Sections 302, 404, and 906 of that act have required these executives to establish and maintain adequate systems of internal control within their companies. In addition, they must regularly test such controls to see that they are adequate and report their findings to shareholders (through SEC reports on Form 10-Q and 10-K) and their independent accountants. “Knowingly” making false section 906 certifications is subject to fines of up to $1 million and imprisonment of up to ten years; “willful” violators face fines of up to $5 million and jail time of up to 20 years.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:

It is difficult to muster any sympathy whatsoever for the goddamned banks. This is a crisis entirely of their own manufacture. Yes, the housing market went down -- which anyone with an ounce of sense could have predicted, and did. Any bank betting the entirety of its assets many-times-over on that not happening deserves to fail as spectacularly as possible, its corporate leadership condemned to no greater future responsibilities than bussing tables. ...

We are aware of Japan's "Lost Decade", a period of real estate collapse and economic stagnation. We have, though, been in our own Lost Decade since the turn of the millennium, and only now that the higher echelons of our society have found themselves in as unpalatable a situation as the rest of us have been in has anyone important deigned to notice. We have had a decade of doing nothing, and two decades of offshoring our every competence, leaving us to putter in our financial closets and declare ourselves kings of all we could see.

Google has bought BeatThatQuote.com, a United Kingdom price comparison website, for 37.7 million pounds, or about $61 million.

BeatThatQuote.com announced the purchase Monday morning on the newly taken over company's home page, with the site's managing director, John Paleomylites, writing:

BeatThatQuote.com today was sold to Google for GBP37.7 million. We think this deal is a tremendous opportunity for our company to develop new and innovative options for personal finance in the UK.

Our team is excited about becoming a part of Google. We look forward to working with their engineers to create new tools making it easier for consumers to choose the right financial products. We think we can offer more transparency and better pricing information than existing online offerings.

Google officials were not available to comment on the acquisition on Monday afternoon. BeatThatQuote.com allows users to search for and compare prices for products in the financial, insurance and legal industries, as well as for gas and electric utilities, TV and Internet service and other shopping matters.

In 2009, BeatThatQuote.com did stir up a bit of controversy with a TV commercial depicting a manager in its workplace pulling waxing strips from shirtless male employee's bodies when he thought they could find better prices to offer online.

The TV commercial was cleared to air after more than 100 complaints were issued against it to the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority, alleging that the spot glorified workplace bullying and depicted too much violence and condoned physical abuse, according to a report from The Guardian.

The notorious advertisement can be seen below.

ALSO:

Facebook snaps up group messaging service Beluga

Google launches wedding site

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
twitter.com/nateog

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