[jessaustin]

He also thought that he was safe doing what the vast majority of CEOs do on a regular basis. At the time of the stock sales he didn't realize just how much he was going to piss off the NSA in the next couple of years, much less how obedient federal prosecutors are to the NSA. It is impossible to become CEO of an ILEC without collecting a vast array of assets vulnerable to official attack. Nacchio might well have decided that the price he has paid was worth a clean conscience.

(I don't really think execs should be compensated with stock, but since they are you know they're going to be selling it regularly. Should they be prosecuted every time the price drops? Of course not, in fact they are almost never prosecuted.)

[tptacek]

I'm not sure why I'm expected to give a shit that lots of other CEOs are defrauding the public alongside people like Nacchio.

[jessaustin]

Hahaha, too true. "Insider trading" is totally a made-up crime, intended more for the selective-enforcement convenience of our superiors in the Justice Department than for "the public". If the public wasn't so damn greedy, they'd invest in T-bills like good subjects. Leave the "high-yield" investing for those who are in the loop. That way NSA staff and their friends in Congress and on K Street can get all the money there is to be made by trading on their contract decisions.

[tptacek]

If you want to argue that the USG should be more aggressively enforcing insider trading laws so as not to make extremely egregious violations look like selective enforcement, I'm right there with you. Otherwise, spare me the sob story that's attempting to rehabilitate the image of outrageously wealthy people who have committed fraud.

[jessaustin]

I won't speak for anyone else who takes an interest in Nacchio, but I don't care a bit for him personally. (Well, I guess if he and Ed Whitacre were both on fire, I'd piss on Nacchio first, but that's it.) His significance is more related to what it tells us about how the various parts of our government collaborate, take decisions, and act when no one is looking, and how the three-felonies-a-day phenomenon enables that.

To enforce insider trading laws in a "fair" way would require a massive expansion of the SEC and related agencies, which expansion would be funded by the general fisc for the specific benefit of investors. There are arguments to be made for that, but they seem similar to the arguments one hears for more aggressive enforcement of our drug prohibition. Those who argue loudest are interested parties. I'd prefer we reverse our many-decades trend, and experiment with less enforcement rather than more. I doubt we're capable of that, but sometimes I indulge in optimism.