How bad are the reputations of bankers and financiers these days? Bad enough that when you see news stories about bad things happening to them you experience a level of schadenfreude that almost can't be described. To wit:
Case 1: Banks desperate for money falling for scams that used to only work on people who believed a prince in Africa would reach out to them for help.
Case 2: A large trading firm almost bankrupting itself in one day thanks to some faulty computer code.
Here's a fun game: see if you can find one person who actually sympathizes with these folks.
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Two things about Knight Capital. The bad code bought high and sold low – the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do. Such a thing goes way beyond a glitch.
Also, the NYSE failed to launder all the bad trades, effectively issuing a $440M death penalty to Knight. That’s definitely a form of enforcement to a bad actor.
Good points. The point about sympathy still stands though – even if they were victims of a hack I think it would still be hard to find anyone with any sympathy for them.
I’d say I’m pretty typical. I don’t pay enough attention to know who all the players are, but I pay enough attention that I think of the whole financial sector as being a cesspool occupied by professional scum. So Knight might be a “white hat” firm for all I know, but I’m ready to think the worst based on what I’ve observed of their industry over the last few years.