UPDATE: From the LA Times today:
That sounds hilariously blatant: Hey, Raj, you know how I'm on the board of Goldman? Well, we board members just learned that Warren Buffett's going to invest $5 billion in Goldman. It will be front page news all over the world tomorrow and our stock will go up. Don't mention it to anybody, though, or try to make money off this information. It's a secret. And good luck on your insider trading trial. [Warning: This is not an actual voicemail message left by Mr. Gupta. I just made it up.]
From Newsweek:
Prosecutors unsealed an indictment detailing insider-trading charges against one of the kings of American finance, Rajat Gupta, who surrendered to authorities earlier Wednesday morning.
A grand jury charged Gupta, the former head of the McKinsey & Co. consulting firm, with five counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud for providing inside information to hedge fund magnate Raj Rajaratnam, who was recently convicted and sent to prison for 11 years for insider trading.
The complaint, unsealed in Manhattan federal court, says that Gupta, 62, provided Rajaratnam with information he had learned as a board member of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble in 2008 and 2009. In one instance, Rajaratnam placed trades based on the information within 39 seconds of learning it from Gupta, authorities said.
In total, prosecutors say that Rajaratnam's Galleon Group hedge funds made profits or avoided losses of $23 million thanks to information from Gupta. They say Gupta stood to gain because of his business partnerships with Rajaratnam, including a private equity fund that they co-founded to invest in projects in Asia. ...
Gupta was accused at the time of passing information to Rajaratnam about Warren Buffett's $5-billion investment in Goldman at the height of the financial crisis. The revelations came just days before Rajaratnam's trial on insider-trading charges began...
That sounds hilariously blatant: Hey, Raj, you know how I'm on the board of Goldman? Well, we board members just learned that Warren Buffett's going to invest $5 billion in Goldman. It will be front page news all over the world tomorrow and our stock will go up. Don't mention it to anybody, though, or try to make money off this information. It's a secret. And good luck on your insider trading trial. [Warning: This is not an actual voicemail message left by Mr. Gupta. I just made it up.]
In a dramatic turn in the case, Gupta surrendered to the FBI to face criminal charges at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday morning at the agency's Manhattan headquarters.
From Newsweek:
The Outsider
In an exclusive interview, Raj Rajaratnam reveals his surprising motivations—and the reasons he didn’t take a plea that could have saved him from 11 years in jail.
by Suketu Mehta
It was 6 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2009, and Raj Rajaratnam, head of the Galleon Group hedge fund, was at home on his exercise bike looking out over Manhattan’s Turtle Bay, thinking about how many shirts he would have to pack for his trip to England that day. He was to go there to launch a $200 million fund to invest in the Sri Lankan stock market, in which he, the richest Sri Lankan on the planet, was the biggest single investor.
At 6:30 his doorbell rang. He answered it to find a number of policemen and men in suits outside. An FBI agent named B. J. Kang told him he was under arrest for insider trading....
... They wanted him to turn in other hedge-fund managers. They wanted him, especially, to wear a wire and tape his conversations with Rajat Gupta, the former CEO of McKinsey. Gupta, whom Rajaratnam refers to as a “first-class guy,” was the most respected Indian executive in the U.S. ...
It was Rajaratnam’s understanding that were he to plead guilty and wear a wire, he might be offered a sentence of as little as five years. With good behavior, he could be out in 85 percent of that time. The evidence on the wiretaps was incontrovertible. It was his voice on the phone asking a variety of informants about companies he was investing in, and giving them loans and other monetary rewards in exchange.
Of the 50-odd people caught up in the insider-trading scandal, “most everyone that’s been charged has pled guilty,” notes Rajaratnam. “Nobody’s fought it. They’ve taken the plea.” But he decided to plead not guilty, and was later convicted on all 14 counts of insider trading, and is now going to jail for 11 years.
Why didn’t he take the plea?
Rajaratnam was a man who lived for information; his entire business edge was built on acquiring information before others did. But when it came to the biggest bet of his life, this master of information was guided—as he saw it—by the political history of his people, his personal journey as a dark-skinned immigrant through the rich countries, and a 3,000-year-old tradition of astrology.
The whole story speaks to the South Asian–American community: its pursuit of success and money at any cost; the differences between immigrants and the first generation; and the immigrants’ incomplete understanding of the rigor of the law in the U.S.
“There are rules and there are laws, and they apply to everyone, no matter who you are or how much money you have,” says Bharara. This is what was not easily understood by the South Asians named in the conspiracy. There are laws and rules in India and Sri Lanka, too, but they can be tested, ignored by those who have money or friends.
Rajaratnam is an immigrant, not American-born. He had grown up, as he tells it, in fear: of the Sinhalese majority in his homeland; of the skinheads in Britain where he’d studied; and of the established elites of Wall Street where he did business. At just about every stage of his life, there were people out to get him. “I saw myself as an underdog.”
Rajaratnam has lived in his penthouse apartment for 15 years. ...
Rajaratnam’s father was an upright executive, the head of the Singer Sewing Machine Co. in South Asia. Residing in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, in the 1960s, the family was Tamil, an ethnic minority favored by the colonial British. After independence, the majority Sinhalese systematically discriminated against the Tamils. Sensing that the situation would get more violent, Rajaratnam’s family emigrated in 1971. He was already in boarding school in London. Two years earlier, his parents sent the 11-year-old to study at Dulwich College. “P. G. Wodehouse went there,” I prompt him. Wodehouse is beloved all over South Asia because his comic novels demonstrate that the former colonial masters were ... silly. His face lights up. “I spent three years in his room. People who stay in rooms in Dulwich write their names. When I moved in, I could see his name. I wrote mine below.”
Afterward, Rajaratnam went to Sussex University, in Brighton, to study engineering. These were the days when a far-right party, the National Front, was marching through the streets, beating up “Pakis,” who were easy targets. “They wouldn’t fight back. They were more docile.” Rajaratnam was once with his uncle in a tough London neighborhood, walking down the street, when three white men rammed their shoulders into the older man. “We started pushing and shoving,” but did not run. “Running has never been part of my M.O.”
As a consequence, both Rajaratnam and his uncle got beaten up. But “I didn’t get beaten up any more than they did.” After that incident, Rajaratnam took to carrying chili powder in his pockets when he ventured out at night. “I was conscious of the fact that I could be attacked because of my ethnicity.”
After Sussex, he decided to get an M.B.A. at Wharton. Of the 600-odd students there, 20 were South Asian. That’s where the Galleon network began. His roommate ended up being head of investor relations at Galleon; another classmate later oversaw Asia for Galleon.
Altogether, four people from his class ended up working for him. Most ambitious South Asians at the time went to Silicon Valley. “Wall Street was tough to get into for us. Not to be crude, but there’s a Jewish mafia, and a WASP mafia, and an Irish mafia up in Boston.”
He rattles off the names of the leading money houses, identifying each by the ethnicity it is stocked with. “They hire their own; they socialize among their own.” When it comes to the South Asians, he bemoans the fact that “for us as a group there’s no unity.” He mentions the microscopically specific matrimonial ads in India Abroad, a community newspaper. “A Punjabi Khatri wants to marry a Punjabi Khatri ...”
He was among the South Asian pioneers on Wall Street. “We didn’t grow up reading The Wall Street Journal. We didn’t have someone who knew someone who could give us an interview. We didn’t have the domain knowledge; we were all foreigners.” Americans had the connections.
Wall Street attracted type-A personalities, “people who could say, ‘I want to make a million dollars before I’m 30.’ ” Rajaratnam found this strange. “Culturally, we couldn’t say that. We were too shy to say, ‘I want to make a lot of money.’ We were more coy.” He noticed, too, that “Americans are born salesmen and born negotiators.” When he was a kid, if he wanted to go to a movie and his father said no, that was it. With his American-born son, however, “if I say no, he starts negotiating.”
Rajaratnam’s first job out of Wharton was at Chase Manhattan. Then he worked as an analyst for Needham & Co., in 1985, a startup. Rajaratnam was its 10th employee, and first South Asian. He started following the semiconductor industry. The PC was taking off, advanced computer chips were being mass-produced, and his engineering background helped him understand the technology. He became director of research and, in a few years, president. “I was in the right growth sector.” Along the way, he hired several South Asian analysts. At one point, George Needham, the chairman, asked him why he was hiring so many South Asians. In response, Rajaratnam read off the names on the company’s trading desk. “Almost all of them were Jewish.” ...
Did he regret anything?
“I’d probably not be so trusting of people.” It’s clear who he’s referring to. The government’s case rests principally on his two Wharton classmates. Anil Kumar, the McKinsey executive, was hired by Galleon as a consultant. The other, Rajiv Goel, worked at Intel for eight years. Both of them pleaded not guilty first, Rajaratnam notes, before they switched to guilty under prosecutorial pressure. ...
Part of Rajaratnam’s narrative is that of a man from a smaller South Asian country seduced and betrayed by people from the Big Brother country. Kumar had introduced him to Rajat Gupta. The two of them wanted to start an Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. “I gave them [the school] a million dollars. I later found out they never contributed any of their money, and are listed as the school’s founders. And I’m not even a fucking Indian.”
The betrayal by the Indian associates hurts the most—he barely mentions the white government witnesses. He regrets doing a joint venture with the Indians. ...
“There are two types of plea bargains. One is, you cooperate with the government. You finger 10 other people. The other is a plea bargain without cooperation.” The white defendants all pleaded without cooperating; they did not wear a wire. “The South Asians all did the plea bargain with fingering,” he notes sourly. “The Americans stood their ground. Every bloody Indian cooperated—Goel, Khan, Kumar.” He puts it down to “the insecurity of being an immigrant, lawyers bullying them into that position.”
As late as two weeks before the sentencing, Rajaratnam was still being asked by the government to turn on Gupta. But he wouldn’t wear a wire, he says, so he could sleep at night. “Anil Kumar’s son worked at Galleon one summer. I used to vacation with Rajiv Goel’s family. Their families knew my family. You don’t think this is going to haunt these guys? They wanted me to plea-bargain. They want to get Rajat. I am not going to do what people did to me. Rajat has four daughters.”
The Rajaratnam case can be seen as a metaphor of the difference between immigrants from South Asia, who have a more elastic view of rules and a more keenly developed art of networking, and their children, the first generation, schooled to play by American rules. Preet Bharara came to the U.S. when he was an infant. Yet for all his complaints about unfairness, Rajaratnam, surprisingly, still believes in American justice. “In Sri Lanka I would have given the judge 50,000 rupees and he’d be sitting having dinner at my house. Here, I got my shot. The American justice system is by and large fair.”
“In your case too?” I ask.
“I said by and large.”
Why so many Indian names in the indictments, I ask. “Because Roomy Khan’s network was Indian,” he explains simply. “They’re not being unfairly targeted. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.” His brother Rengan sees it differently. “For years these guys were sitting around in sports clubs and exchanging information. That wasn’t a crime. And now we immigrants do the same thing and it is?”
It makes sense: the Tamil schoolboy, persecuted in his home country; tormented in the U.K.; handicapped in his career, as he saw it, by his ethnicity. When faced with yet another antagonist, he reaches for the chili powder in his pockets. But still, wouldn’t the balancer of risk and profit have realized that the smart thing to do was to take the plea and hope for a reduced sentence, rather than risk dying in jail? (Rajaratnam has advanced type 2 diabetes; his kidneys are failing.) It seemed like an irrational decision.
But there is an irrational explanation. A Sri Lankan diplomat close to Rajaratnam told me that she’d met him shortly before he was convicted. “He’d gone to the ola-leaf readers. They told him he’d be acquitted.” Ola-leaf readers are Sri Lankan astrologers. They believe that 3,000 years ago, seven Indian sages decided to write down the horoscopes of every person yet to be born, on a series of palm leaves. A skilled reader can read the leaves to present a complete life story of an individual, including his future. So on a subsequent meeting with Rajaratnam, I ask him about the ola leaves. “A friend did it for me,” he says, startled that I know.
... It fueled his conviction that he should fight the case all the way. It explains his puzzling insistence that he is innocent, in spite of the massive wiretap evidence to the contrary.
This was his edge; this was inside information that no one else had.
Suketu Mehta, a professor of journalism at New York University, is the author of Maximum City.
In summary, it's only human nature that our world's reigning ideology of minoritarianism, which was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans, is now subscribed to by random elites from all over the world, from places with zero connection to historical sins of the United States of America, to rationalize their own ethical corner-cutting within America: Sure, we may look like a bunch of Wharton MBAs, but we're really outsiders, victims of discrimination, so therefore we are morally justified.
I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. Bigot.
ReplyDeleteIn short: "I am a victim".
ReplyDeleteI thought the case against Raj Rajaratnam got started because he was funding a terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers. The Sri Lanka government asked the US government to put a stop to it. So they did.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he'll share a cell with Bernie Madoff; Jews are another kind of faux minority, although they don't seem to be lacking in money and influence. And Bernie could've used a few investment tips. But I guess it's too late for that.
ReplyDeleteSure, we may look like a bunch of Wharton MBAs, but we're really outsiders, victims of discrimination, so therefore we are morally justified.
ReplyDeleteCan you think of any better way to explain 2000+ years of European dominance without harming your self-esteem?
Yes. Isn't it rather disgusting the way certain journalists, for whatever reason, (cash might have well changed hands), try to to turn the most unsavory characters - venal, duplicituos corrupt cheats - into sympathetic characters if not victims?
ReplyDeleteThe point is the man is a crook and a very big crook
As for the run-ins with skinheads, isn't the suffering currently being inflicted on the innocent victios of the current recessiom, women and children amongst them eg eviction, foodstamps etc, due to the venality of the corrupt, far, far greater?
But I find it odd that the Goldman Sachs guy who became the posterboy of Goldman crookery is a Hindu.
ReplyDeleteBtw, no group plays victimism more than Jews. Even as the most powerful group in the US, they play the Holocaust card and say any criticism of Jewish abuses or malfeasance is 'antisemitic'.
And even the Madoff scandal was spun as 'Jews were his main victims'. Somehow, he is a very bad man because he robbed from superrich Jews. Oh poor poor victims.
He rattles off the names of the leading money houses, identifying each by the ethnicity it is stocked with.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to know more about that.
Steve, you're nuts - because he says only 'by and large' fair, you call him a whiner? I didn't see any whining - his reluctance is either due to just not being able to bring himself to come out and say it or, due to some lingering sense of other unfairness he's experienced. But he didn't whine, or no more than probably the white guys would have.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I mis-read your take but, I don't see where you get minority special-pleading, either by the subject or the author.
The fact that the prosecuting attorney was South Asian as well was was not an accident.
ReplyDeleteShe HAD to be. That's how byzantine and unmanageable our "society" has become.
Along the way, he hired several South Asian analysts. At one point, George Needham, the chairman, asked him why he was hiring so many South Asians. In response, Rajaratnam read off the names on the company’s trading desk. “Almost all of them were Jewish.” ...Did he regret anything?
ReplyDeleteEthnic nepotism ok for Jews, ok for NAMs, okay for Blacks,..just not ok for US!
White racism is the universal moral solvent, present in all human agency.
ReplyDeleteFunny how the nyt always went out of its way (except in victim themed stories) to post pictures of the one or two white guys involved in this.
ReplyDeleteActually, the Jewish elite, in particular WANT more of this - because it hides or provides an air of normalcy for jewish contempt for high trust society standards.
"This lack of civic responsibility has emerged as a problem in Israel. When a ceiling collapsed at a crowded wedding due to shoddy construction in 2001, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the Diaspora mentality of avoiding laws: “”It’s shocking to hear boastful and haughty words like: ‘Laws are meant to be circumvented.’ How many times have we heard people who’ve returned from trips abroad, who make fun of the citizens of the countries they visited, because they act like nerds: They stand in line, they make sure to pay.”"
ReplyDeleteAlso: Dont make important legal decisions based on astrology.
ReplyDeletewe're really outsiders, victims of discrimination, so therefore we are morally justified
ReplyDeleteI dunno - I see it more as a "partly inbred extended family" practicing ethnic solidarity in pursuit of maximizing the returns on their rent-seeking, monopolistic, anti-competitive marketplace strategies.
Along those lines, I have long held that the Ashkenazim and the Brahmin despise one another with a really deep, visceral hatred [if for no other reason than that facing off against one another is like staring into a mirror].
Methinks Sailer has developed a case of blonguer. Is he dead, seriously?
ReplyDeleteBased on the excerpt, I don't think this article is about victimism. It is about culture clash(South Asian rule culture vs American law culture) and the inequality of the law in America. Rule of law matters in America, but the law is not equally effective against all groups.
ReplyDeleteIf most of Wall Street had been dominated by Asian-Indian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, or Muslim-Americans, there would have been no bailouts. Media, government and courts would have gone after them and the banks would have been 'nationalized' and then sold to other groups. Also, a whole bunch of people would have gone to jail.
This Rajawhatever guy is a crook and got what he deserved, but his grievances are legit. He's not saying he's innocent or that the law was wrong to go after him. He's complaining of how certain groups are favored. it is about privilege-ism, not victim. Just look at scum like Marc Rich.
There insider-trading but there's also insider-war-mongering: Iraq War and Libya War. Whether one sees those wars as good or bad, they were sold to the public by bogus insider-dealing among Western and Arab elites to get rid of Gaddafi to their advantage.
ReplyDeleteThere was also insider-media-info-sharing-and-censoring to get Obama nominated over Hillary and then elected over McCain in 2008.
I believe there are still many honest judges in America and the system still works on many levels. But with we look at recent wars, elections, bubbles, and bailouts, this is a very corrupt nation where some people can get away with just about everything cuz they own the levers of power.
The irony in this post is that this blog, especially in its comment section, is a constant purveyor of "victimism". Except it is victimism of the white ethnic majority. Almost every thread features some white male commenter bemoaning how he (usually he) has been victimized by affirmative action, black people, minorities, Jews, women, you name it. This "victimism" is all over the American right wing, culiminating in the farcical Fox News "war on Christmas" charges, in which Christians (90%+ of the country) bemoan that evil secular people are somehow preventing them from celebrating the most popular holiday in the country.
ReplyDeleteI would love a system where nobody merchandised their whiny claims of victimization, but that seems unlikely. People are incredibly keen to denounce victimization claims by others while remaining totally blind to their own exaggerations and self-pity. I'm sure Adolf Hitler went to his grave looking at himself as a hapless victim of the all-powerful Jews. It's probably some essential component of the way people think about justice and entitlement.
In summary, it's only human nature that our world's reigning ideology of minoritarianism, which was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans. African-Americans are up there, no doubt, but it was also famously used for Jews.
The Bloombergs, Blankfeins, et al are at the top of this food chain and it's starting to get a bit crowded, the economy is in a downturn, and there's a lot of public anger. They're going to start throwing the other lower groups overboard and they might even figure out how to selectively turn on the immune reactions of the host population. South Asians aren’t all that high on this food chain.
ReplyDeleteIf most of Wall Street had been dominated by Asian-Indian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, or Muslim-Americans, there would have been no bailouts. Media, government and courts would have gone after them and the banks would have been 'nationalized' and then sold to other groups.
ReplyDeleteWall Street has really a ton of influential Asian-Indians, although not as many as Christians and Jews (Jews may be the most over-represented group but I think Christians are still easily the most numerous). But with its current size and central role in the economy it would have been extremely powerful regardless of the ethnic mix. Of course, it is unlikely that a somewhat marginalized group like Muslims would ever have come to dominate such a central part of the economy.
To add some actual fact to what may become a heated discussion of what ethnic group dominates what, here are the five largest bank holding companies by size and their CEO, by ethnicity/probable religion:
Bank of America: Brian Moynihan, Irish Catholic
JP Morgan Chase: Jamie Dimon, Greek-American (Orthodox? Catholic?)
Citigroup: Vikram Pandit, Asian-Indian (don't know if Hindu or something else)
Wells Fargo: John Stumpf (from small-town Minnesota, would assume Lutheran or some form of Nothern European Protestant)
Goldman Sachs: Lloyd Blankfein, Jewish-American (Goldman Sachs, as you can tell from the name, is a historically Jewish firm).
MQ, if everyone ELSE is playing the ethnic nepotism game, you expect Whites not to play too? If everyone ELSE cries about racism, you expect Whites not to cry too (and they have reason to as well).
ReplyDeleteWhites (save rich connected ones) are at the back of the bus, in pretty much everything. While being the majority of the country and paying for everyone else. This is what is called a pre-revolutionary condition.
Since we've already established that SOME people will ALWAYS be at the back of the bus, why not non-Whites be shoved back there and Whites sit up in front? Getting all the goodies, government spending, preferences, etc. FIRST? Really, why not?
No system can survive for long (particularly in economic hard times extended) when the majority is screwed out of opportunities.
Rajnaratnam is a crook of the highest order. One of the biggest around, in fact. He ought to be in jail, but he's playing the oppressed non-White card.
I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. Bigot.
ReplyDeleteYou don't find it interesting that the logic of his justification (the way he reconciles himself to all this) is both self serving, distortionary and internally contradictory at every turn?
Nor that it is obviously derived from a mass media narrative that the modal political zeitgeist, is, if not endorsing, not actually hostile to whatsoever?
I actually took away that discrimination is ok on Wall Street, as long as it is in favor of your group.
ReplyDeleteNot really "OT" but I found this interesting about turning the statue of liberty into the statue of immigration:
ReplyDeleteFeaturing over 83 original objects from 27 institutions and individuals, "Poet of Exiles" is the first full-fledged artifact exhibit at a major museum to robustly explore the life of Lazarus, from her work as an advocate for immigrants fleeing the Russian pogroms of the early 1880s to her pioneering support for a Jewish homeland
funny how MSM reporters write stuff like that and don't see the hypocrisy....
Bloomberg, Blankfein, et al are at the top of the food chain and it's starting to get a bit crowded, the economy is in a downturn, and there is a lot of public anger. They are going to start throwing other groups lower on the food chain overboard, and they might even figure out how to selectively turn on the immune reactions of the host population. South Asians aren’t all that high on the food chain.
ReplyDeleteWhiskey, this is the first time you've said a Wall St. crook should be in jail. Why is that?
ReplyDelete"To add some actual fact to what may become a heated discussion of what ethnic group dominates what, here are the five largest bank holding companies by size and their CEO, by ethnicity/probable religion"
ReplyDeleteWall Street is in NY. Jews own NY.
Jack Valenti may have been president of Movie Academy or whatever, but Jews own Hollywood.
Even banks with non-Jewish CEOs are filled with power Jews at every level. It's like GOP doesn't have a Jewish presidential candidate and only Jew in the Senate, but neocons really run much of it.
was at home on his exercise bike
ReplyDeleteThe man is a disgusting looking fatty. (Also later: (Rajaratnam has advanced type 2 diabetes; his kidneys are failing.))
Wodehouse is beloved all over South Asia because his comic novels demonstrate that the former colonial masters were ... silly.
No. People love Wodehouse because Wodehouse is a comic genius.
After that incident, Rajaratnam took to carrying chili powder in his pockets when he ventured out at night.
Hilarious.
“A Punjabi Khatri wants to marry a Punjabi Khatri ...”
He's married to a Punjabi. Tamils are the ugliest Indian ethnic group. Punjabis are probably the best looking. South Indians take this kind of thing hard.
“He’d gone to the ola-leaf readers. They told him he’d be acquitted.”
This sounds very South Indian.
"The irony in this post is that this blog, especially in its comment section, is a constant purveyor of "victimism". Except it is victimism of the white ethnic majority."
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not. Victimism is when you demand special preference on the basis of victim status. We are not saying whites should be FAVORED over non-whites. We are saying less qualified non-whites should not be favored over whites.
Also, there are indeed white victims, such as poor whites victimized black and illegal crime. Where such white victims do exist, people should know about it. This doesn't mean ALL whites are victims but some are. We need more news on such people.
But in the current order, we pretend as though ALL Jews and blacks and Hispanics are victims--even rich Jews, millionaire blacks, and rich white Hispanics--while we ignore the problems of the poorest whites victmized by black crime, affirmative action(which hurts poor whites far more than rich whites), and illegal immigration.
He did a bad thing, but its okay because he is a brown person. Makes sense to me.......
ReplyDeleteAs for those 'skinheads' allegedly giving him a rough time in England, what right did he have to invite himself to the U.K.?
it's only human nature that our world's reigning ideology of minoritarianism, which was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans, is now subscribed to by random elites from all over the world, from places with zero connection to historical sins of the United States of America, to rationalize their own ethical corner-cutting within America: Sure, we may look like a bunch of Wharton MBAs, but we're really outsiders, victims of discrimination, so therefore we are morally justified.
ReplyDeleteYup. Jews do this, even though they're the complete opposite of a persecuted minority in the US.
Looking at all these crooked Indians makes me wonder if these are the high IQ entrepreneurs we're all always told we need to import to America.
Ass said:
ReplyDelete"Tamils are the ugliest Indian ethnic group. Punjabis are probably the best looking. South Indians take this kind of thing hard."
How do you know this?
mattS said...I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and ...
ReplyDelete... and says he's not guilty by virtue of being non-white.
You missed that part of the story because you were too busy being a brain-dead liberal.
Should Pennsylvania Ave in Washington be called War Street?
ReplyDeleteit is victimism of the white ethnic majority. Almost every thread features some white male commenter bemoaning how he (usually he) has been victimized by affirmative action, black people, minorities, Jews, women, you name it.
ReplyDeleteYou're lying.
Actually you probably are not consciously lying. You may actually believe what you say. But what you are saying is not true and you really should know better. So in a sense you are lying to yourself.
This Rajawhatever guy is a crook and got what he deserved, but his grievances are legit. He's not saying he's innocent or that the law was wrong to go after him. He's complaining of how certain groups are favored. it is about privilege-ism, not victim. Just look at scum like Marc Rich.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really dumb example, since Marc Rich was convicted of illegal trading and tax evasion. So was Michael Milken.
While I'm not a fan of either man, at least they never claimed that they were convicted because they were Jewish.
Astrology is pervasive across India. South Indian, North Indian, Punjabi...... doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteRajaratnam was a man who lived for information; his entire business edge was built on acquiring information before others did.
ReplyDeleteThat's the definition of trading in general, isn't it? It's not an activity which requires a staggeringly high IQ, it's an activity which requires inside information. Everybody knows what to do with the information, so the edge lies in getting it slightly ahead of the other guys. Vast fortunes can be made in this fashion. So trading will always favor those closely knit ethnic minorities.
that they were convicted because they were Jewish.
ReplyDeleteau contraire, many jews thought milken was and madoff as well.
It really doesn't matter this is human nature at work - south asians are not going to be 'embarrassed' by this guy they are going to be mad at us for their version of 'anti semitism'.
Someone remind me, we need South Asians in our country, and in our financial industry, exactly why again?
ReplyDeleteJobs Americans won't do, was that it?
If you feel like an outsider as a child and adolescent, it's hard to shake that. People who felt socially ostracized in high school still carry some of that around with them. I'd imagine that actually being targeted for violence because of your ethnicity would be a lot worse.
ReplyDeleteIf you feel like an outsider as a child and adolescent,
ReplyDeletebut diversity exacerbates nearly everything negative.. EVERYTHING turns into a ethnic conflict, even something which should be as basic a wall street crook.
I agree with servo.
ReplyDeleteRajaratnam doesn't seem to be whining at all; the author of the piece is putting a kind of victim spin on it, but I think the main subject of ethnic issues on wall street and in law is interesting and basically sound journalism.
This whole shtick about not understanding how things really work in America due to being an immigrant is complete bullshit, just like the notion of culturally biased standardized tests is bullshit. The man is fluent in English, has lived here for over a decade, obtained a local grad degree, has held a job here for a prolonged period of time, and he is raising a child in America. He is fully immersed. For god's sake, he, basically, grew up in London. Can the British plead cultural misunderstanding as valid defense in USA?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 4:22 - Everyone feels like an outsider as an adolescent. Some more truly, and more powerfully than others, but it's too universal an excuse. At its extreme, it is how criminals think. They always believe they are one down and only cheating to level the playing field in a world stacked against them.
ReplyDeleteThe attitudes to rules and justice I have also heard in Romania.
It's more like a victeam mentality. "Since other groups play as a team, why attack us when we act as a team?"
ReplyDeleteIt's starting to get a bit crowded at the top of the food chain, the economy is in a downturn, and there is a lot of public anger. The top of the food chain is going to start throwing other groups lower on it overboard, and they might even figure out how to selectively turn on the immune reactions of the host population. South Asians aren’t all that high on the food chain.
ReplyDelete" the main subject of ethnic issues on wall street and in law is interesting and basically sound journalism."
ReplyDeleteIt's very good journalism.
Was that what he really said or was it Bufflaxed by the reporter?
ReplyDeleteHe aint much of a dancer either.
How will Jews do this? By changing their position on immigration? No, that would make them look like hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteAnd their stance on Israel does not??
ACLU still maintains its cred as free-speech organization
ReplyDeleteactually some of the members/chapters have come out in favor of hate speech laws.
@Anon, neither Raj Rajaratnam nor Rajat Gupta is a brahmin
ReplyDelete@Anon, the prosecuting attorney is a HE, not a she and if not for his name, looks like an Italian dude
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/letters/on_ethics_reform_andrew_is_awol_83JJAkjjhBhlhb64IessFI
@MQ, Vikram Pandit is a brahmin
"If you feel like an outsider as a child and adolescent, it's hard to shake that."
ReplyDeleteThen we're all screwed, pretty much. How many people haven't felt like outsiders during adolescence? I imagine that being rich enough to attend a boarding school in London would sweeten the deal a bit. But, hey, maybe not. "Shaking that" might be hard, but its the very essence of growing up.
"I'd imagine that actually being targeted for violence because of your ethnicity would be a lot worse."
I am a child immigrant, and I was also a disliked ethnic minority in my country of birth. I've had a few run ins there, and, here in America, kids teased me for having an accent and being from an immigrant, a few times. Now, I can't vouch for anyone else, but for me these incidents were nothing in emotional magnitude compared with all the normal adolescent crap. I'd take being made fun of for my national origin over being turned down for a date or not being asked to a dance any day in middle school. Plus, when it comes to feeling proud/ashamed of one's origin, status helps. A lot. I'm sure Rajaratnam's family felt superior both to the poor Sri lankans and to the English Chavs.
"When that day comes, Jews will still support immigration but take a dive in the ring and let the other side win."
ReplyDeleteIt's called 'riding the brakes'. Now, Jews have their foot firmly on the brake. In the future, their foot will still be on the brake but not too hard; they'll let the car slide downhill. That way, they officially tried to stop it but the car went downhill anyway.
mattS said...I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. Bigot.
ReplyDeleteDid we need them to come here and commit their crimes?
"That's a really dumb example, since Marc Rich was convicted of illegal trading and tax evasion. So was Michael Milken."
ReplyDeleteMarc Rich was never convicted, he was indicted. In fact that was one of the main objections to Bill Clinton's last-minute pardon of Rich - that you can't pardon someone who hasn't been convicted. In the first 5 years after leaving office, at least one dollar in twelve (> $2.6 million) that Clinton earned from speeking was from explicitly Jewish groups.
It's odd that Indians have such strong group identification. There are more Indians in the world than there are whites. But they have it, in the US at least. I've seen Indian weddings and college graduation parties in flyover country with 200+ guests and not a single white. The Goldman Sachs office in my old office building, also in flyover country, was probably at least 1/4 Indian. Something tells me the guy doing the hiring was, too.
"He rattles off the names of the leading money houses, identifying each by the ethnicity it is stocked with."
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to compile a list of American corporations and identify each with the ethnicity it is stocked with.
This is information that well-informed people know, but is never published in newspapers or books.
Insider trading is for insiders. The problem is an outsider did it.
ReplyDeleteThey need a scapegoat for Wall Street shenanigans and got themselves a scapeelephant.
ReplyDelete"I don't know if it was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans. African-Americans are up there, no doubt, but it was also famously used for Jews."
ReplyDeleteThere are two issues pertaining to this.
Americans generally think of victimhood in national terms, i.e. 'blacks were oppressed IN America, so we owe something to them.'
But not all groups see it this way. Jews want Americans to feel sorry for the Holocaust though it happened in Europe and Americans fought the Germans. As far as Jews are concerned, the Holocaust is the crime of the entire West and Christianity itself. Also, US didn't enter the war fast enough nor did it fight to save Jews. So, Americans owe Jews too.
White leftists expand the idea of victimhood. Even if Mexicans were not enslaved by white Americans, they were discriminated against. Also, Mexers are partly of Indian blood. Leftists don't see the world in national but in ideological and global terms. Their narrative is 'white man conquered the New World and oppressed the natives--via slavery in South America and genocide in North America.' So, ALL whites are guilty of crimes done to natives of America from North to South.
Also, Latin Americans--even white ones--feel they've been victimized by Yanqui imperialism, interventionism, and support of reactionary regimes. And most professors in college teach this. I took a class in Latin American studies in college, and the narrative was 'Gringos exploit Latinos and prevented the victory of leftist liberation by backing the likes of Pinochet.'
As for Asian-Indians, they see America as part of the Anglo Empire that stretched from Africa to Asia to New World. Gandhi studied in Britain, lived in South Africa for awhile, and then returned to India. Many Indian intellectuals in the post-WWII era saw the world in terms of white imperialism or neo-imperialism over darker people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America(all over the world). In the 60s, this view was all the rage, which is why Che Guevara became a big hero in places like India and Arab countries too.
Also, with the spread of globalism, victimology is no longer limited to one nation but spread and expand into other nations. Narratives blend and mix. So, black Americans identify with Palestinians, Palestinians identify with Latin Americans, Latin Americans identify with rappers in LA, etc.
Victimology is a commodity, and it crosses borders like just MTV, hamburgers, and iphones. So, everyone wants American products, wanna come to America, but also to blame America for everything. With glory, power, and profits come blame, responsibility, and cost.
And yet one more nearly-almost-practically victim of this White biagotry.
ReplyDeletePass me a Kleenex, please.
Interesting article. I also don't feel it's much about victimology. Few random comments:
ReplyDelete1. If the portrait is accurate, I kinda like the guy. Between the guy who refuses to rat and the guy who rats on his friend to save himself, the choice is clear.
2. Asian nepotism is on top of all others. E.g., I know a whole department in a large American university where 13 out of 17 faculty members are Pakistanis. Or: All three Indian professors I know very well employ their own wives.
3. Isn't pretty much everyone guilty of insider trading on some level? Are these law an equivalent of tax fraud laws in Putin's Russia? So that powers that be can get anyone anytime if there is a need to?
Gupta surrendered to the FBI to face criminal charges at 5:15 a.m. Wednesday morning... -L.A. Times
ReplyDeleteSo the Los Angeles Times can't assume its readers know that 5:15 a.m. is in the morning? Who buys this paper?
Yes yes...he is so victimized.
ReplyDeleteHe got a chance to study at an expensive English Boarding school...where he was a victim.
He got a chance to attend a prestigious university...where he was a victim.
He got a chance to go to Wharton...where he was a victim.
He got to work as a Wall Street Analyst...where he was a victim.
Victim victim victim.
Send him back to Sri Lanka.
Anil Kumar, the McKinsey executive, was hired by Galleon as a consultant.
ReplyDeleteBefore that, his only offers were from bathhouses, weightrooms and the like. Because Americans tend to stress the first syllables.
At one point, George Needham, the chairman, asked him why he was hiring so many South Asians. In response, Rajaratnam read off the names on the company’s trading desk. “Almost all of them were Jewish.” ...
ReplyDeleteNeedham himself seems to be a generic white American, but he did not staff his company with generic white Americans.
Isn't pretty much everyone guilty of insider trading on some level?
ReplyDeleteNo, actually.
Wall Street has really a ton of influential Asian-Indians, although not as many as Christians and Jews (Jews may be the most over-represented group but I think Christians are still easily the most numerous).
ReplyDeleteNot even close. Jews outnumber Christians by more than 3:1, and Protestants are maybe 5%.
"That sounds hilariously blatant"
ReplyDeleteThat's because it was. Like a lot of South Asian elites, these two don't seem to be that bright. They're probably just grinds.
Being a persecuted Ceylon Tamil has turned into a real growth industry. Obama may be the Most Oppressed President Ever but I'm sure his successor will emphasize his/her rise from humble beginnings on the less fashionable side of town in Santa Barbara or Bloomfield Hills, or triumph over restless leg syndrome or ADHD. Admissions letter sob stories are a common feature of the modern NYT (I really deserved to get into Swarthmore, you know, but will have to settle for Oberlin). Does anyone remember the Paul O'Neill vs. Robert Byrd CSPAN confrontation where they tried to out-poor each other? Weakness is the new strength.
ReplyDelete'he tells it, in fear: of the Sinhalese majority in his homeland'
ReplyDeleteConsidering the nature of the people in these countries, I'd actually consider this a legitimate fear. Not so sure about the rest..
Anybody wondering about Suketu's oeuvre (he apparently serves as Tina's beat reporter for South Asian celebrities) can find his wide-ranging reportage, which stretches from Kashmir to Bollywood, in your local dentist's office's Conde Nast section or the NYU alumni monthly. In the Newsweek preview of his Guggenheim-funded project re: immigrants, what he delivers isn't quite sushiology but it's not quite anything really. It almost makes me miss the anthropology fad; taking an interest in anything apart from your ethno-class niche is quite passe among today's journalists.
ReplyDeleteMQ's tu-quoque rant about victimology missed the main point that Rajaratnam is not your typical minority striver out of central casting. To be sure, the Newsweek interview did not lean on that & actually contained much colorful info...
ReplyDeleteI have to say this particular tale of insider trading (always a great statute for extra-legal prosecution and political payback) is more entertaining than Martha Stewart's mundane crime spree. It is too bad about Sri Lankans being too shy to do hilarious pressers like Danielle Chiesi, but we ought to be able to get a new Bonfire of the Vanities out of the FBI playing Muslim So. Asians against 'em, if they can just fend off those Salvadorean housekeepers cheated by same!
As a Jew, I distrust your assumption that the success of Tamils and other South Indian groups in the US, where they are the wealthiest immigrant ethnic group, is due to cohesiveness, their tribalism or loyalty to each other. These people are exceptionally intelligent, they may have the highest IQ of all ethnic groups. They are also verbal (love chattering) and very dynamic.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they dont win beauty contests.
There is an element of victimism here but not of the usual kind.
ReplyDeleteThe usual kind, mostly defined by blacks, comes in three basic forms:
1. I can't make the social climb no way no how because the white man is keeping me down.
2. The white man and the system are keeping my people down, and so I need affirmative action to succeed.
3. The white man victimizes my people and treats me at best like a house n-----, and so I will do whatever to burn down the master's house: the Jayson Blair scandal.
This is not the narrative put forth by Rajamas. Raja says he encounterd hostility in places like UK, but he didn't complain, he didn't call for special preference. He ate bitter rice, accepted reality as it was, and struggled to make the social climb. When he was attacked by skinheads, he carried curry powder to fight back. In a tough world, it makes no sense to bitch and whine; you gotta be tough and stand your own ground. It is very much the attitude of the Pakistani businessmen in MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE, one of the most best immigrant-themed films.
Raja's point is this: instead of bitching about white thuggery of skinheads or demanding affirmative action to favor his kind, he decided to network with his own kind and build up their own empire. Also, he decided to learn from the Western world. He observed that Anglos have their insider-trading old-boys-network community and Jews had their insider-trading-old-boys-network club. His kind was not welcomed to the upper echelons of those clubs, so he decided to do what whites and Jews did. Hire his own kind, work closely with them, and share information via ethnic networking. He didn't bitch, he didn't complain. He figured the best way to make it in a white/Jewish-dominated world was to act like white and Jewish elitists.
We members of the non-elite can kinda understand where he's coming from. We know how the white/Jewish liberal elite play a dirty game. They accuse us of 'racism' and 'xenophobia' while carving out privileged and safe white-topias or Jewtopias for themselves in gentrified parts of the city or in gated communities.They yammer and lecture about equality but do everything to send their own kids to posh schools and groom them for Ivy League. What a bunch of hypocrite louts.
If most of us sit and bitch and whine about his liberal white/Jewish urban elite(and how they piss on us), Raja figured he would observe, learn, and pull the same shit to move on up in the white/Jewish cosmopolitan-urban elite class. He didn't cry 'victim', he didn't demand 'special treatment' for his kind. His motto was 'we must work hard and do as the white/Jewish elites do.' (I wish more non-elite whites were similarly determined, ambitious, and ruthless.)
Now, he admits three things did lead to his downfall.
(1)He bent the rules; he admits it's partly cultural--he comes from a corrupt culture--, but he also believes what he did wasn't all that different from what Jews and Wasps on Wall Street do. He just didn't have the political and elite muscle to protect himself.
(2)He didn't really understand enough of the rules; he didn't understand that he was not a 'made man' in Wall Street, no matter how rich he was. As such, he was easy prey to the hypocrisy of the American system that prefers to go after easy prey(and relatively smaller fish)than the real sharks.
ReplyDelete(3)His South Asian colleagues still suffer from victim mentality rooted in colonialism and all too easily bowed to the white masters like sappy cowards instead of having some John-Wayne-like pride and guts to stand their own ground like tough warriors.
So, in a way Raja is saying he didn't play the victim. He didn't beg for mercy, he didn't rat on others, he didn't make the Jayson-Blairian case that he was burning the master's house down. He refused to see himself as a pitiful victim begging for mercy and instead had the guts to fight for keeps(like the character in GURUBAI).
There is something of a victim narrative in the sense that he implies that he was targeted partly for his ethnicity, but there is also a sense of pride that is the opposite of victimology; he's saying he's started at the bottom and was even attacked by thugs. But instead of griping and moping as a 'victim' or asking for affirmative action for his kind, he'd decided to think like a victor(than a victim) and work up the business ladder to the top with ambition, zeal, and yes, a corruption too.
If this is victimism, I still prefer it to the Obama BS, Cornel West BS, Henry Louis Gates BS, and Tavis Smiley BS, Alberto Gonzalez BS, Sotomayor BS, etc.
Rajarathnam is a Christian
ReplyDeleteHis fathers name is Jesu-thasan
Raja, unlike most blacks, is not saying he's a victim-victim but a victor-victim,i.e. he got targeted cuz he succeeded against all odds without asking for special help from whites or Jews.
ReplyDeleteBad guy!
ReplyDeleteBtw, how about combining FORREST GUMP and SCARFACE? Forrest and Tony were philosophers in their own right. Tony Gump, the retarded gangster from Cuba.
Forrest: Life is like a box of chocolates.
Tony: America is like a big fat pussy just waiting to get f---ed.
--------
Tony Gump: Life is like a chocolate-flavored pussy just waiting to be eaten.
I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. --MATTs
ReplyDeleteThat Matt agrees that the action is bad exposes his own Occicentric bias. C'mon, now, diversity isn't just physical diversity; it's moral diversity as well. In much of the world, insider trading is the bee's knees.
Matt probably opposes the circumcision of girls and the imprisonment and execution of sexual minorities as well. Sheesh, how white can you get? Imperialist!
Oh, and matt'S prolapsed apostrophe in "we;re" is more than a little creepy. Let;s just say, if you;re not with a kid, stay away from the playground. It;s only right!
ReplyDeleteWhatever 'ola-leaf reading' is it is definitely NOT astrology.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds more like some type of sortilege/geomancy.
Any respectable astrologer (people who draw up mathematical charts of the heavens and use all sorts of calculations), would be a aghast at being confounded with an 'ola-leaf reader'.
MQ,
ReplyDeleteThe point is this:
No matter how much you'll try to bullsh*t your way out of it, no matter how much sophistry you use or how many strawmen you put up, the fact is that there is only one group of legislated second-class citizens today in the USA, and that is white males.
Yes, read my words LEGISLATED SECOND CLASS CITIZENS.That is the actual fact.A series of laws (go and look them up) passed by the US government over the years legally enshrines and endorses a secomd class status against white men and actually encourages race and sex discrimination against them.
The only mystery is why there isn't more protest.
"White leftists expand the idea of victimhood. Even if mexicans were not enslaved by white Americans, they were discriminated against. "
ReplyDeletemexicans were considered white from ~1850 to the late 1960s, until they agitated for, and selected a non-white identity. They've had white when convienent priviledge. If we lose that fight, either we're retarded, or the media is simply all powerful.
As to the jews riding the brakes, I don't think that they can afford that. They are in this to the hilt. Whites starting to view pro white actions as positive for themselves can not be seen as good.
Anonymous: Interesting that you think that Jews will start going the other way on immigration.
ReplyDeleteI think so too. However, I can see it going completely the other way rather than just "ease up on the brakes" type action. Pretty much everyone imported has been more anti-Semitic than the white host population. More to the point, they either compete directly with Jews in their niche, or they contribute to a more violent, criminal society which Jews have to live in.
My impression is that once Jews had the reigns of power in their hands, they unthinkingly tried to create a utopia for themselves based on what they had to work for before. The laws and society of the host population were weakened to the point where things were now ridiculously easy for them - kind of like reverse altitude training. As a result, every other race has flooded in to take part in the spoils as well.
Asian nepotism is on top of all others.
ReplyDeleteits not really 'nepotism' anymore than say Brits worked in synch to colonize india... its just that our (white) mentality is if we behave like that, even in our own countries, it's racism!
In other words, corruption is the name of the game where I hail from, therefore it is discriminatory to apply the same rules to me as to someone who is born here. That about covers it, right? Diversity Uber Alles. The hidden side of multiculturalism, SWPL lefties assume the rest of the world has Northern European or East Asian levels of legal compliance. As we are now seeing in Mediterranean Europe, those who do follow the law get tired eventually of those who don't.
ReplyDeleteHow will Jews do this? By changing their position on immigration? No, that would make them look like hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteAnd their stance on Israel does not??
- - -
Of course not. As I explained on another thread, Israel is required to exist because of the periodic outbreak of violence in Western Europe and North America (excluding Mexico) against Jews. If you doubt that, just think of the pogroms started off by Mel Gibson’s Passion movie or Glenn Beck’s TV show.
If some think that Jews are hostile to white gentiles because of the extreme and selective criticism many Jews have leveled against Western European white gentiles and white gentiles in North America, it is only because of the racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny and various other isms that reside virtually alone in Western European and white gentile societies. After all, these problems are virtually non-existent in Africa, the Arab Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, China and Japan and Central and Southern America. Anyone who denies this is clearly an anti-Semite straight up. If you doubt me, just ask my Shiksa wife.
Do yourself a favor and read George Packer's feature on the Rajaratnam case. New Yorker Link It's interesting to see that the U.S. Attorney in the case, Preet Bharara, is a Punjabi. Also, I like the outsider status accorded to someone who went to the same boarding school as P. G. Wodehouse.
ReplyDelete@ an anonymous commenter above:
ReplyDelete""This lack of civic responsibility has emerged as a problem in Israel. When a ceiling collapsed at a crowded wedding due to shoddy construction in 2001, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon condemned the Diaspora mentality of avoiding laws: “”It’s shocking to hear boastful and haughty words like: ‘Laws are meant to be circumvented.’ How many times have we heard people who’ve returned from trips abroad, who make fun of the citizens of the countries they visited, because they act like nerds: They stand in line, they make sure to pay.”"
Here is a link to the original story in Haretz. And a very interesting one it is.
FWIW, my comment to Haretz:
"Oh dear. The idea of inclusive fitness (aka kin selection) and how it shapes the culture and mores of different societies with different rates of inbreeding and outbreeding is the subject matter of a new blog by an anonymous female who lives somewhere in the Mid-West. She doesn't talk about Jews or Israel much if at all and is obviously not a bigot or a racist.
Anyway, she is on to something it would seem. Yet this story does not fit her narrative very well if at all. It is one thing to see this problem in the context of an inbred ethnic minority, a market-dominant minority, in the context of a larger society. But here we have a similar phenomenon within the context of a larger society that is closely related.
Can anybody explain?
I also found the comment that it goes back to Joseph interesting. One of the great things about the Hebrew Scriptures is that it doesn't try to sugar coat the past. The good, the bad, the ugly are all impartially reported "without fear or favor" along with their (imputed) consequences. This is one of the glories of the Hebrew tradition in my opinion.
At least it gives reform two legs to stand on. Let's see what happens next.
"Oh dear. The idea of inclusive fitness (aka kin selection) and how it shapes the culture and mores of different societies with different rates of inbreeding and outbreeding is the subject matter of a new blog by an anonymous female who lives somewhere in the Mid-West. She doesn't talk about Jews or Israel much if at all and is obviously not a bigot or a racist.
Anyway, she is on to something it would seem. Yet this story does not fit her narrative very well if at all. It is one thing to see this problem in the context of an inbred ethnic minority, a market-dominant minority, in the context of a larger society. But here we have a similar phenomenon within the context of a larger society that is closely related.
Can anybody explain?
I also found the comment that it goes back to Joseph interesting. One of the great things about the Hebrew Scriptures is that it doesn't try to sugar coat the past. The good, the bad, the ugly are all impartially reported "without fear or favor" along with their (imputed) consequences. This is one of the glories of the Hebrew tradition in my opinion.
At least it gives reform two legs to stand on. Let's see what happens next.
"
ReplyDeleteIn summary, it's only human nature that our world's reigning ideology of minoritarianism, which was most famously used for the benefit of African-Americans, is now subscribed to by random elites from all over the world, from places with zero connection to historical sins of the United States of America, to rationalize their own ethical corner-cutting within America: Sure, we may look like a bunch of Wharton MBAs, but we're really outsiders, victims of discrimination, so therefore we are morally justified."
Sailer, now where in the holy hell did you read that?!?!?
I think you're starting to crack up, Old Bean.
I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. Bigot.
ReplyDeleteRofl.
This is FAR from the only reply along these lines.
White Americans are so far effed in the head I seriously doubt there's anything that could jolt them out of their stupor. What pees me off is that their matchless idiocy is going to take the rest of us down, too.
Look, American moron, the whole piece is nothing but one long plea for leniency based on ethnicity, written by a coethnic for God's sakes, go easy on this poor brown immigrant because oh, just look at all the endless racism the poor thing has suffered through, from enduring national front marches to being beaten up by skinheads and now, this, legal prosecution (would they go after a white man the same way? hmmm?). Sure he may have breached securities law, but you know, he really, really wanted to make it.
MQ,
You're not a half-bad whiner yourself, I can see. Yes, whites are on their way out; yes, America's suffering in no small because of it; but GODDAM if anyone has a right to discuss if it means turning a critical eye to...well, I don't want to incur your wrath so I won't say. (Just to answer for yourself, though, do you seriously mean to say you LIKE the idea of living around the Rajes and the Gooptas and the almost literally endless numbers of that will, one day, it's all but a mathematical certainty, arrive? Really?)
Silver
The irony in this post is that this blog [...]
ReplyDeleteMore of your usual dishonesty. The vast majority of ethnopatriotic criticism of the current racial regime is couched in the plural, not the singular. But the story of the whiners plays better in your ad hom, so you went with it.
I would love a system where nobody merchandised their whiny claims of victimization, but that seems unlikely.
What share of the total, overall ethnic whining do whites command? 1%? 2? Yet in your crusade against ethnic whining, you just happen to spend your time singling out that tiny fraction?
Your "anti-ethnocentrism" sounds more like ethnocentric Ashkenazi anti-Euro sentiment to me.
I'd like to see a society free from your whining.
"White Americans are so far effed in the head I seriously doubt there's anything that could jolt them out of their stupor."
ReplyDeleteI wonder if white apathy or stupor is more the product of leftist indoctrination, fear of PC power and blacklisting, or white domination that lasted for so long that most whites take it for granted that things will be alright for them. When a people have had power for so long, not only do they feel their power may be permanent but they have no idea of what it's like to really fall. Whites may, by habit, feel that even the decline of white power can't be too painful since their whole memory of history and their own lives is 'we had the power' and 'things only got better and better through progress'.
Chinese went through hell and still have memory of what it's like to fall and face losing your whole nation to foreigners.
Jews have fresh memories of the Holocaust. Even in nations where they'd felt most safe, they got dragged off to death camps.
But many white gentiles only have memory of white power and domination that goes back for centuries. For some, it may be guilt and a desire to be punished. But for others, it could be a habitual feeling that their power is here forever. And for others, it could be a sense that even the downfall of white power can't be all that bad since they don't have memories of threat or invasion by non-white peoples. Indeed, the only great horrible recent memory for Europeans is invasion by fellow white Germans in WWII.
The attitude might be somewhat different in the Balkans and Russia. Balkan nations have no reason to feel white guilt since they didn't conquer the Third World. If anything, they'd lived under Ottoman rule or Muslim threat for centuries. And Russians have the long narrative of horror under Mongol rule.
But no such national or historical memory haunts most of Western Europe, especially the Northern parts.
In the movie ZARDOZ, the Eternals take their immortality for granted. And even when they choose downfall and death, they have no idea of how horrible it can be since their only memory is of their mastery, power, and privilege. They don't know what it's really like to fall and lose power. They think pain will be painless. But when the massacre begins, they are suddenly really freaked out.
In a way, Gaddafi forgot too. He thought he would either prevail(he'd come to take his power for granted in Libya) or his end would be painless and glorious. But it was horrific, humiliating, and ugly. Sad really.
OT.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some Republicans supported Amnesty to regain a sense of moral righteousness that gave birth to the Republican Party in 19th century. The Slavery issue made the party. And its proudest moral moment was the EMANICIPATION PROCLAMATION which said all slaves must be free. So, for a long long time, the GOP has moral superiority over the Democrats-- something it lost when blacks went over to the Democratic Party(and when rednecks came to the GOP).
Some Republicans are just happy for GOP being a white party, but some Goppers still cling to the romance of Republican Party's moralistic roots.
Since there is no more slavery, Amnesty is the new Emancipation Proclamation. Supposedly, all these decent and hardworking illegal immigrants are living in the shadows without rights and liberty as equal citizens. So, we must liberate them and make them Americans. And since most are nonwhite, the narrative would be 'good decent whites helping and freeing non-white second-class-citizens and helping them to become full-fledged Americans'.
Of course, it is absurd to compare Amnesty(of illegals who came here of their own volition) with the Emancipation Proclamation, just like it's absurd to morally equate 'gay marriage' with the Civil Rights Movement, but in these times, people on both sides of the political spectrum feel this need to inflate anything to regain or retain their sense of moral highfaultinness.
I am a child immigrant, and I was also a disliked ethnic minority in my country of birth. I've had a few run ins there, and, here in America, kids teased me for having an accent and being from an immigrant, a few times. Now, I can't vouch for anyone else, but for me these incidents were nothing in emotional magnitude compared with all the normal adolescent crap. I'd take being made fun of for my national origin over being turned down for a date or not being asked to a dance any day in middle school. Plus, when it comes to feeling proud/ashamed of one's origin, status helps. A lot. I'm sure Rajaratnam's family felt superior both to the poor Sri lankans and to the English Chavs.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you, a grown up? :)
Those few, to-you-negligible instances of bigotry and seething white ethnic hatred are the hand from which the race-card is played. And if you didn't have any, you could always make some up.
Featuring over 83 original objects from 27 institutions and individuals, "Poet of Exiles" is the first full-fledged artifact exhibit at a major museum to robustly explore the life of Lazarus, from her work as an advocate for immigrants fleeing the Russian pogroms of the early 1880s to her pioneering support for a Jewish homeland
funny how MSM reporters write stuff like that and don't see the hypocrisy...
Lol, yeah. Nice one.
Whiskey, this is the first time you've said a Wall St. crook should be in jail. Why is that?
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
0/26/11 4:54 PM
To this man you listen; know how the game is played, he does.
'Cept for the part about turning off the immivasion tap. Plausible, though.
"How will Jews do this? By changing their position on immigration? No, that would make them look like hypocrites."
And their stance on Israel does not??
All the more reason not to press their luck.
This is information that well-informed people know, but is never published in newspapers or books.
Kind of a sad commentary on Americans, really. How hard would it be for a well-placed person to get this info out there?
White people have gone way beyond stupid.
I should actually take down my blog's subheading and replace it with this. You can pretty much replace everything I say with this.
"If reformers insisted on transforming all ordinary kids into world-class athletes, this would be a joke, since everybody would know the truth."
ReplyDeleteRotfl.
They stand in line, they make sure to pay. They look at these citizens as freiers. They're not the freiers, we're the freiers. I searched but didn't find, Mr. Speaker, a linguistic parallel in any language to the Israeli term 'freier.'"
ReplyDeletePrecisely. This is why Israelis, if they really want to succeed at making a country (and not a hideout) of Israel, are going to have to truly split with the diaspora; the gypsy/grifter morality doesn't spell success when you're the majority.
I get it. Some brown guy did something bad and we;re all suppoed to lash out at diversity. Bigot.
ReplyDeleteNo, dumbass. The script is, "Brown guy does something bad and lashes out at bigots: diversity."
Not to be crude, but there’s a Jewish mafia, and a WASP mafia , and an Irish mafia up in Boston.
ReplyDeleteHey, a Whiskey reader! "You see, women HATE HATE HATE beta Indian guys, so I had to thug it up with some insider trading action which improved my alpha status."
I had no idea what a frier was (as quoted in Svigor's post), so I did a quick search and found this from Haaretz:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/thou-shalt-not-be-a-freier-1.211247
"Like a lot of South Asian elites, these two don't seem to be that bright. They're probably just grinds."
ReplyDeleteExtremely amusing. South Asian elites are bright. It's the masses that are super-stupid.
Funny that Rajat Gupta, a Harvard Business School Baker Scholar, is suddenly just another grind.
Btw, Rajat Gupta's daughter married an African:
http://africanamedia.com/index.php/blog/entry/india_meets_africa_wedding_of_the_decade/
"In other words, corruption is the name of the game where I hail from, therefore it is discriminatory to apply the same rules to me as to someone who is born here."
ReplyDeleteRaj did say that he thought the American justice system is fair.
"No, dumbass. The script is, "Brown guy does something bad and lashes out at bigots: diversity.""
No, dumbass. The script is, "Brown guy does something bad THAT MOST OF WALL STREET DOES and lashes out at INDIANS FOR NOT HAVING BALLS"
Is the death of Gaddafi the first killing of a leader to be video-ed and internet-broadcasted around the world? How times have changed. He built up his image via the old media controlled by the few, and he was undone by the new media where every member of the mob is a video-journalist. in way, one could say he was the first leader to be youtubed to death.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that he was arrested by a Korean-American FBI agent (B.J. Kang)and prosecuted by an Indian-American US Attorney (who got the job by working as counsel to Sen. Chuck Schumer).
ReplyDelete@Beowulf
ReplyDeleteWhy is it interesting :|
Aren't they just doing their jobs?
@beauwolf - necessary, not just interesting, but in our allegedly post racial society it's impossible for white males to prosecute or arrest a brown guy.
ReplyDeleteAs a Jew, I distrust your assumption that the success of Tamils and other South Indian groups in the US, where they are the wealthiest immigrant ethnic group, is due to cohesiveness, their tribalism or loyalty to each other. These people are exceptionally intelligent, they may have the highest IQ of all ethnic groups. They are also verbal (love chattering) and very dynamic.
ReplyDeleteSuccess in trading does not require a high IQ. It requires gaining insider knowledge before everybody else learns it. This, after all, is why we have laws against insider trading in the first place. If the information was worthless before beng processed by your mighty Jewish and Tamil brains there would be no need for these laws. The laws exist because it is the information itself which is priceless - anybody of average intelligence can make use of it.
Of course not. As I explained on another thread, Israel is required to exist because of the periodic outbreak of violence in Western Europe and North America (excluding Mexico) against Jews...If some think that Jews are hostile to white gentiles because of the extreme and selective criticism many Jews have leveled against Western European white gentiles and white gentiles in North America, it is only because of the racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny and various other isms that reside virtually alone in Western European and white gentile societies. After all, these problems are virtually non-existent in Africa, the Arab Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, China and Japan and Central and Southern America. Anyone who denies this is clearly an anti-Semite straight up. If you doubt me, just ask my Shiksa wife.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, this is not me talking, it is the anti-semitic voices in your head. I don't doubt you've got some fantasy Jews living in there who are constantly heaping abuse on you. Since I don't think Israel is "required to exist" I'm pretty sure I never said that. I'm also pretty sure my wife is better looking than yours...the whole spittle-flecked tone of your writing speaks of some kind of frustration.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteThere's got to be an HBD explanation for all the corrupt Indians. They must have undergone selection for distrust and are hardwired to go for the short gain and rip people off.
In college, Indians are the biggest cheaters and the bane of many professors.
Indians seem more interested in short-term scams than creating anything meaningful.
"Indian H-1B Workers Incompetent Cheats and Frauds" by Tim Stephanini
http://www.vdare.com/letters/a-silicon-valley-executive-calls-indian-h-1b-workers-incompetent-cheats-and-frauds
Let's not forget that the average IQ of India is only 81 (IQ and the Wealth of Nations) and that India seems to have quickly burned through the far right of its bell curve:
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703515504576142092863219826.html
I know that some American whites who have never been to India romanticize Indians, but if you ever spend time in India you will find the vast majority of Indians not to be much different from blacks (in IQ, temperament, impulse control, etc.).
Nepotism will always win out.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way. Although Askhenazis have a higher average IQ than European Americans, because European Americans have high IQs (on a global scale) and overwhelmingly outnumber Ashkenazis, genius-IQ European Americans outnumber genius-IQ Ashkenazis 7:1 (Richard Lynn).
If the Ivy League schools were meritocracies, European Americans should outnumber Ashkenazis 7:1, but they don't. There's a 1:1 ratio.
Lack of ethnocentrism is the Achilles Heel of contemporary white people.
"Btw, Rajat Gupta's daughter married an African:"
ReplyDeletehttp://africanamedia.com/index.php/blog/entry/india_meets_africa_wedding_of_the_decade/
from that link:
India meets Africa: Wedding of the Decade
...
Although you can’t judge a book by its cover, the wedding card told me that this Indian is not from a poor family, and though Vincent is noble, certainly you can’t classify him as rich. The rich, expensive card told me that the Indian family must be rich. So, when next Vincent called me I jokingly asked him how much dowry he was getting from his in-laws, after all in India the women paid the dowry, unlike Nigeria, although in their own neck of the woods, I believe the man is supposed to pay about N25 or so, that’s the Asaba area of igboland. He laughed and I said that we were seriously thinking of attending the wedding, I couldn’t pass nosing around and finding out and confirming my assumptions. I was sure it wasn’t going to be one of those marriages where our people would marry one of those fat, ugly, retched, uneducated, illiterate (didn’t I say that already) white trash, and proceed to make all kinds of noise. "
weird, not sure what to think.
""Indian H-1B Workers Incompetent Cheats and Frauds" by Tim Stephanini
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vdare.com/letters/a-silicon-valley-executive-calls-indian-h-1b-workers-incompetent-cheats-and-frauds"
More baseless slander. If I had to slander, I'd make sure it could hold water over the next decade. Talking about Indian poverty is good, because everyone knows there is no way India will be rich within 5 years. Talking about Vikram Pandit or Microsoft's Indian workers is silly, because there's a chance one might have to eat one's words within a few years. Of course, WNs do not understand reason often (Sailer is sort of an exception for White Nationalists).
"Windows Vista, produced by Microsoft's 30,000 Indian workers and an utter flop for the company."
What about Windows 7? Did MS's Indian workers forbidden from working on it?
"Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit led the company while it lost nearly $19 billion in 2008 and fired 73,000 employees."
He was appointed in Dec 2007 for Christ's sake! He's turned the company around and Citi's back on track now.
"In truth, these are not the best and brightest workers. "
Many are. Here's a small list of former H1-Bs in the tech sector:
Google fellows: 3 out of 4 are Indians - Sinhal, Ben Gomes (Goan-Indian born in Tanzania), and Ghemawat.
Micosoft's distinguished scientists: 13 in total. 4 Indian, 4 East Asian, 5 Whites and Jews.
Head of Yahoo Research, Microsoft's Bing Research Team, 2 of the 9 Intel Fellows, tons of ACM Doctoral dissertation award winners, Fulkerson Prize winners, Knuth Prize winners were all on H1-b. To say that there are no top-notch Indians in technology is either ignorant or disingenuous.
"weird, not sure what to think."
ReplyDelete"Wow, that's AMAZING, not everyone has the same postage-stamp view of the world I do" would be a good start.
The victimization that Raj expresses is a fantasy. If Wall Street were really that clannish, then what amount of "hard work" could he possibly do that would overcome such institutional bias?
ReplyDeleteNo...he is successful because the rest of The Street was willing to do business with him. He was never locked out and he was never an outsider.
His excuses are BS. There is no way he could make it on his own with some newly established "Indian network." He needed people already in the business willing to start him out. And they did. They gave him that chance.
And now he turns around and accuses the people who gave him opportunities of running an old boy network.
the Jews run the same routine...how the WASPS locked them out. The reality was that Jews got their start working in WASP financial industries.
To the Anonymous who wrote: "Success in trading does not require a high IQ."
ReplyDeleteThanks for noticing my comment. About four fifth of the commenters are so obsessed with us Jews that focused their attack on Jews although Rajaratnam case had no Jewish connection or facet at all.
You seem to disregard the fact that some South Indians are exceptionally intelligent (including Raj and others implicated in this insider trade). You think trading on Wall Street needs no intelligence, which they lack, only tribal connections, which they do have. The idea may protect your self-esteem, but it is wrong.
To the question why these capable South Indians are so poor in the India but they float to the top in America, my theory is that India is an extremely racist country and no chance will be given to these black-skinned fellows. America, on the other hand, provides an environment of fair opportunity and they seize it.
Regarding the specific case of Raj Rajaratnam, if he is traded on insider knowledge he is a criminal and should be punished, as everybody else. The law punished African criminals even if (I think) they cant help being what they are and doing what they do.
To the Anonymous who wrote: "Success in trading does not require a high IQ."
ReplyDeleteThanks for noticing my comment. About four fifth of the commenters are so obsessed with us Jews that focused their attack on Jews although Rajaratnam case had no Jewish connection or facet at all.
You seem to disregard the fact that some South Indians are exceptionally intelligent (including Raj and others implicated in this insider trade). You think trading on Wall Street needs no intelligence, which they lack, only tribal connections, which they do have. The idea may protect your self-esteem, but it is wrong.
To the question why these capable South Indians are so poor in the India but they float to the top in America, my theory is that India is an extremely racist country and no chance will be given to these black-skinned fellows. America, on the other hand, provides an environment of fair opportunity and they seize it.
Regarding the specific case of Raj Rajaratnam, if he is traded on insider knowledge he is a criminal and should be punished, as everybody else. The law punished African criminals even if (I think) they cant help being what they are and doing what they do.
J,
ReplyDeleteIndians sound awesome. How many will Israel be taking this year? By what date should Jerusalem become, say, 15% Hindoo? I'd rush if it I were you. Diversity is a strength by itself, so just think how much more of a strength it'll be with these superhighfocused Indians just looking for a fair go in life (which Jews, not being racists, no way no how, will of course be only too happy to provide them).
Also, there's something I'm confused about. You say that commenters here are "obsessed" with you Jews, but the fact is that it is you, an outside from Israel, who polices these blogs and attempts to restrict what people may be permitted to think. Is this not an "obsession" on your part?
Silver
"Talking about Indian poverty is good, because everyone knows there is no way India will be rich within 5 years."
ReplyDeleteThe economy has slowed. Growth is probably about sub-7% this year and in the next years. The country might have run out of talent.
Indians burned through the right of their bell curve pretty quickly? You mean with a population of a billion there aren't more coming up?
ReplyDeleteI have a had couple of young Sikhs, turbans & all, as computer nerdboys (name of the company) and they were smart, efficient, and did their job well. One had a business on the side and set me up w/a new computer for half the price a regular company would have charged. Extremely honest otherwise, and scrupulous. Good looking too. For some reason they are among the tallest peoples around; He also gave me a 2 hr history of the Sikh religion but that was ok. He warned me that not all Sikhs are good people however fine the teachings. Filed for reference, I said.
I have been been to India, but too briefl to draw too many conclusions. It seems that the IQ distribution there is unique in the world because of the different castes, maybe. Africa has a billion people but you wouldn't get as many like some of the ones I've encountered. You just wouldn't.
India does not compare with sub-Saharan Africa; but it's also not a repository of pervasive high achievement. It only has a few threads of that, woven through the whole.
Nepotism will always win out.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way. Although Askhenazis have a higher average IQ than European Americans, because European Americans have high IQs (on a global scale) and overwhelmingly outnumber Ashkenazis, genius-IQ European Americans outnumber genius-IQ Ashkenazis 7:1 (Richard Lynn).
If the Ivy League schools were meritocracies, European Americans should outnumber Ashkenazis 7:1, but they don't. There's a 1:1 ratio.
Lack of ethnocentrism is the Achilles Heel of contemporary white people.
I'd like to see the math on that 7:1 thing, plus the back and forth that inevitably ensued.
Of course, WNs do not understand reason often (Sailer is sort of an exception for White Nationalists).
ReplyDeleteI reason pretty well. I'd also put the average ethnopatriot up against the average person (or the average south Asian, for that matter) in the reasoning department, since most people in general couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag.
1) It's perfectly reasonable to slander south Asians with little (or tenuous) cause because that's what they do to us at the drop of a hat. Reciprocity makes perfect sense. Reciprocity also means treating Indians in our territories the way they treat us in theirs, which idea of course makes the hackles of every cognitive elitist of south Asian descent stand up and turn red.
2) It's also perfectly reasonable to ignore south Asian merit because it's immaterial; we don't want to live in a south Asian colony. This is our home, not theirs.
3) I brush aside arguments conflating every ethnopatriot, just as south Asians are experienced enough to brush aside being conflated with every south Asian.
>Indians seem more interested in short-term scams than creating anything meaningful.<
ReplyDeleteMost East Indians I know own and work hotels and convenience stores 24/7.
"To the question why these capable South Indians are so poor in the India but they float to the top in America, my theory is that India is an extremely racist country and no chance will be given to these black-skinned fellows. America, on the other hand, provides an environment of fair opportunity and they seize it."
ReplyDeleteShouldn't Israel also being providing fair opportunity for South Indians?
To the question why these capable South Indians are so poor in the India but they float to the top in America, my theory is that India is an extremely racist country and no chance will be given to these black-skinned fellows.
ReplyDeleteIndia is populated by "black-skinned fellows", Mr High IQ Genius. In what alternate reality is India a white country where the evil racists are keeping the black man down?
This is the bio-data of the father of Rajaratnam . He was already a very wealthy man in Sri Lanka.
ReplyDeleteHis father J.M. Rajaratnam (senior) was born in Alvai South, Vadamaradchy, an old boy of Hartley College, Point Pedro and the college mate of K.B.Ratnayake, an SLFP stalwart and was the Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka. J.M. Rajaratnam, was the chairman of Singer (Sri Lanka) in the 1970s before being promoted to head the multinational’s South East Asia operation based in Bangkok, according to S.K. Wickremasinghe, former chairman of Airlanka, the Sri Lankan airline and one-time colleague of Rajaratnam senior. He later went to New York as Vice President of Singer Exports.