INDIRECTLY, more on Aleynikov, his arrest, and that software which if used by one knowing its use, can be employed to minipulate financial markets unfairly - there is this timely cartoon - and there is the looming big question; which prisoner should be brought to the dock, the boss or the Russian programmer - the ownership interests as boss and proginator of the software of this kind, footing the bill with a presumable intention for its use by the boss (in only honorable and fair ways, of course), or the hireling, who only worked on a part of its creation in exchange for money from the boss? What is the relative measure of dangerousness to society, to peoples' retirement savings and to pension funds and the like?
Actually, Wall Street moguls don't dress like that anymore - they dress like Treasury Secretaries; and the cartoon itself was from the beginning years of the last century, not this one, published among other "Socialist Cartoons" online here, with this commentary:
This cartoon refers to the Pujo Committee hearing into the existence of the "Money Trust." The elder Lindbergh, Congressman from Minnesota, had asserted on the floor of Congress in 1910 and 1911 the existence of a Super Trust, linking all the other Trusts together. As a result of much public outcry, a committee was established to investigate. Neither Lindbergh, nor any of the more radical legislators were allowed on the committee, or to question the principal Moguls of Wall Street who were called before the committee. They might have asked the wrong (right) questions. In spite of their absence, however, the Committee did determine that a Money Trust did, in fact, exist.
The Money Trust was so powerful that it was able to maneuver the force of public opinion that had been aroused by the revelations of the Pujo Committee. Various elements, both within the Banking community, and within the kept "Progressive" movement, were calling for "banking reform." In 1910, a cabal of power brokers from Wall Street held a secret conference on Jekyll Island, Georgia. The fruit of their labor, the Aldrich Bill, was promoted by Republicans under President Taft, but came to naught. In 1913, Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., wrote and published his seminal work on the subject, Banking and Currency, and the Money Trust.
Subsequently in 1913, under the "liberal" president, Woodrow Wilson, the same essential plan, with minor changes, was signed into law as the Federal Reserve Act. This Act bestowed upon the Money Trust the actual, legal power that it had been illegally amassing for the previous forty years. In 1918, the Money Trust was so powerful that it was able to use the Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer, to enter the offices of the National City Press, in Washington D.C., and seize all of the books and destroy all of the plates of the books of the elder Lindbergh.
There is the saying about not knowing history is doom to repeat it. The Lindburgh book, (noted on the title page as "Dedicated to the Public"), is available for free download from Google Books; here; as it is out of copyright. Have a look because it is history we can know of by reading. Ron Paul is currently questioning the purpose and actions of the entire Federal Reserve System, and at least wants it audited (with that bill steadily gaining sponsorship in these times to over 200 current sponsors in the House). The history of the 1907 panic, the Money Trust and J. P. Morgan and the dominant brokerage of the time, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and planning and subsequent enactment of the Federal Reserve Act is something I have not read enough about to comment cogently, but a topic I intend to study. Living under the decision of this central bank run by the bankers is the law of the land, as they say --- and we, again as they say, are a nation of governing laws more than a nation of governing men. They say.
Yet, is "I'm Paying the Cost to be the boss" (to any degree) the actual rule of the land - believe it and live with it?
Ask Mr. Goldman. Or ask Sachs.
They did not have to raise a three-quarters of a million bail bond as Sergey did.
Instead, they orchestrated the FBI's involvement. Aleynikov suffered it, having not paid "the cost" as Goldman had, until only after he made his short-or-a-million bail; and he may yet have more cost to pay while Goldman simply prospers further and
Ask them.
They paid the cost. To be the boss of that trading platform-and-software package.
It's theirs. To reap with.