On investment bankers

Management of risk is a valuable social function.  However, there must be risk to be managed, and

one must have insurable interest in the risk being managed. Also, banking and insurance can not be

co-mingled.

Investment banking performs a marketing function and also an insurance function. In the old days, the two

used to be separate and the companies did not always buy insurance from investment banks (many of us

remember subscriptions receivables). Nowadays, at least in the United States, the two come bundled,

just as IBM bundled hardware and software. And we all know what happened with lease accounting then.

Because the two are DISTINCT functions, it makes sense in financial disclosures for stockholders to know, for any issuance of stock, how much was paid for marketing and how much was paid to insure the issue sold.

As far as I know, Google was the only stock that was sold directly. They did make a mistake in estimating the

price at which the issue would be sold out.

In credit default swaps, the transfer of risk is legitimate, but calling it NOT insurance is not. Also permitting insurance-like contracts when insurable interest does not exist is gambling, pure and simple. 

Similarly, short sales of stock performs a socially beneficial function by providing liquidity, but naked short selling does not. Naked short selling is gambling, pure and simple.

Merely disseminating "fail to execute" orders is not enough.  It is like publishing a roster of gamblers in Las Vegas who failed to pay. In Las Vegas it would probably be easier to  find them in the obituary columns, making the roster superfluous.  But on Wall Street, on the other hand, gamblers who don't  pay can borrow from our government for almost free and pay themselves hefty bonuses.

Don't debtor's prisons, chain gangs, and a hat-less highway garbage detail in the middle of the summer day look an attractive payback  for these swindlers in suits?