When the Securities & Exchange Commission settled securities-fraud charges against Richard Harriton, former chairman of the clearing subsidiary of Bear, Stearns & Co., there were smiles all around. The SEC was happy. Harriton was happy. Bear Stearns was happy.

Gary Weiss

Kochi, formerly called Cochin, is a former European settlement with a large Christian population and a seafaring heritage. It is a town of enormous charm that reminds some visitors of the Caribbean more than India.

Gary Weiss

The media and marketing deluge has spawned a new type of Wall Street loser: the armchair momentum player. These are novice investors who engage in short-term stock buying and selling based on media reports or an expert's enthusiasm.

Gary Weiss

Excessive hype, bankruptcy, cash burning like autumn leaves - such is the stuff of short-selling.

Gary Weiss

For Randy Neugebauer, the Texas Republican who chairs the investigations subcommittee, the top sources of funding for his 2012 reelection campaign are from the insurance, banking, finance, securities and real estate industries.

Gary Weiss

Broadcasts from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange have propelled once-obscure financial journalists such as Maria Bartiromo to celebrity status and made CNBC to investors what ESPN is to sports fans.

Gary Weiss

Shorts wager on price declines by selling shares that they have borrowed in the hope of buying them back at far lower prices.

Gary Weiss

In the struggle against sexual discrimination on Wall Street, Pamela K. Martens is a latter-day Rosa Parks - a woman who, metaphorically speaking, refused to sit in the back of the bus.

Gary Weiss

Short-sellers perform a useful function in the market as conduits of negative information, and shorts often complain that they are discriminated against by regulators.

Gary Weiss

Legitimate institutions historically have been defenseless in the face of outright fraud.

Gary Weiss

The flip side of humiliation is pride.

Gary Weiss

One problem with the focus on speculation is that it tends to promote the growth of the great intellectual cancer of our times: conspiracy theories.

Gary Weiss

India may be the only country in the world that has been free of anti-Semitic prejudice throughout its history.

Gary Weiss

All too often, the pitchmen are selling the notion that if you gain 'control' over your financial destiny - pick your own stocks and execute your own trades - it will be the first step on a short road to riches.

Gary Weiss

No other facet of American business is more corrupt, more intoxicated with illegality, more weakly regulated, and has a greater impact on poor and working people than debt collectors; not credit card companies or subprime mortgages, not even payday lenders.

Gary Weiss

The problem with the focus on speculators, as was demonstrated during the financial crisis, is that it tends to divert attention from the real villains. During the financial crisis, the villains were the actions of the banks, not the speculators betting on bank share prices.

Gary Weiss

George Soros is one of the few characters from the world of finance who deserves to be called larger-than-life.

Gary Weiss

When Corporate America finds a Jayson Blair in its midst, the standard operating procedure is to circle the wagons and deny that any form of liability extends up the chain of command.

Gary Weiss

When the Securities & Exchange Commission settled securities-fraud charges against Richard Harriton, former chairman of the clearing subsidiary of Bear, Stearns & Co., there were smiles all around. The SEC was happy. Harriton was happy. Bear Stearns was happy.

Gary Weiss

Oil futures were originally created to give heating oil dealers, gas retailers, aviation companies and other businesses a method of hedging against adverse price changes. Instead, they've become just another Wall Street plaything.

Gary Weiss

Ordinarily, the feds piggyback on the S.E.C. in complicated financial cases, but history proves that breath-holding on that score is a dangerous endeavor.

Gary Weiss