Financial Fraud Quotes

I loved Internet businesses, having built and sold one. And I loved the financial business, despite the fact that it was almost all a scam.

The stock market is a racket. Those guys are crooks.

Remember that all financial markets are filled with good but not necessarily innocent people looking after their own self-interests before they look after yours.

If I rob a gas station, I'm going to get 15 years. If I steal $400 million on Wall Street, I start plea-bargaining.

White collar crime must be taken as seriously as any other crime.

When executives allegedly lie to the investing public about their company's performance and thereby harm the integrity of the market, they must be held accountable.

I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.

But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy. Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them. Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.

In every stockjobbing swindle every one knows that some time or other the crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbor, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.

The history of government management of money has, except for a few short happy periods, been one of incessant fraud and deception.

I did business the same way President Lee did, and from what I read in the papers, the same way President Ma has done. But I have been charged for misuse and misappropriation. People need to learn at the most basic level that valid charges have not been brought against me.

Once I really got into securities fraud prosecutions, I came to realize how central they were to the maintenance of a free market and how, in many ways, they are far more important to the welfare of our society than many of the more sensational criminal cases that one hears about.

The savings and loan scandals grew in the dark basements of official government secrecy.

I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.

Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

Gentlemen, You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for law is too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt

… too big to jail

Before the stock market crash of 1929 approximately half of all the stock sold in America was fraudulent. President Coolidge did not believe in the Federal Government interfering with business and would not interfere. His Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover however was worried about the extreme corruption of the system. By the time he succeeded Coolidge as President, it was too late.

The possibility of bringing white-collar criminals to justice is ever receding over the horizon.

I don't think anyone would argue with the notion that there have been serious abuses on Wall Street.

I agree that there are some bad apples on Wall Street. I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for 'Barron's' magazine and I found a lot to write about.

A scam is a scam. A fraud is a fraud. Different rules don't apply in the City than they do for you and me.

A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.

In the public mind, an investment banker is no longer conservative; he's a risk taker, a gambler in high stakes, not to mention a thief. These people are dangerous - deliciously so.

Computer hacking really results in financial losses and hassles. The objectives of terrorist groups are more serious. That is not to say that cyber groups can't access a telephone switch in Manhattan on a day like 9/11, shut it down, and therefore cause more casualties.