Most Hated Politicians - The Funny Version

We've been repeatedly accused of promoting hatred on internet which is certainly not true :-) . We rather prefer to say that we help people understand the nature of evil. Anyway, we're not trying to apologize for what we're doing as we already learned from a famous French saying that 'qui sʾexcuse, sʾaccuse' meaning 'he who excuses, accuses himself'. We answer to these allegations in our own way, by posting a very popular game on internet that will help you understand how funny and ridiculous this 'most hated' category can be. Enjoy it:

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ANSWER

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Top 10 Most Evil Women in History

We all have a tendency to focus on the evil men in the world and forget some of the truly evil women that have left their mark to history. This list is intended to correct this. Here we have not just evil serial killers, but other utterly despicable women who have caused tragedy in many people’s lives. So, without further ado, here are the top 10 most evil women in history.

#10. Queen Mary IBorn: 1516; Died: 1558

Mary was the only child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to live past infancy. Crowned after the death of Edward VI and the removal of The Nine Days Queen-Lady Jane Grey, Mary is chiefly remembered for temporarily and violently returning England to Catholicism. Many prominent Protestants were executed for their beliefs leading to the moniker “Bloody Mary”. Fearing the gallows a further 800 Protestants left the country, unable to return until her death. It should be noted that Elizabeth I shares position 10 on this list for her equally bad behavior.

#9. Myra HindleyBorn: 1942; Died: 2002

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were responsible for the “Moors murders” occurring in the Manchester area of Britain in the mid 1960’s. Together these two monsters were responsible for the kidnapping, sexual abuse, torture and murder of three children under the age of twelve and two teenagers, aged 16 and 17. A key found in Myra’s possession led to incriminating evidence stored at a left-luggage depot at Manchester Central Station. The evidence included a tape recording of one of the murder victims screaming as Hindley and Brady raped and tortured her. In the final days before incarceration, she developed a swagger and arrogant attitude that became her trademark. Police secretary Sandra Wilkinson has never forgotten seeing Hindley and her mother Nellie, leaning against the courthouse eating sweets. While the mother was obviously and understandably upset, Hindley seemed indifferent and uncaring of her situation.

#8. Isabella of CastileBorn: 1451; Died: 1504

Isabella I of Spain, well known as the patron of Christopher Columbus, with her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, are responsible for making possible the unification of Spain under their grandson Carlos I. As part of the drive for unification, Isabella appointed Tomás de Torquemada as the first Inquisitor General of the inquisition. March 31, 1492 marks the implementation of the Alhambra Decree; expulsion edicts forcing the removal or conversion of Jews and Muslims. Roughly 200,000 people left Spain; those remaining who chose conversion were subsequently persecuted by the inquisition investigating Judaizing conversos. In 1974, Pope Paul VI opened her cause for beatification. This places her on the path toward possible sainthood. In the Catholic Church, she is thus titled Servant of God.

#7. Beverly AllittBorn: 1968

The “Angel of Death, Beverley Gail Allit, is one of Britain’s most well known serial killers. Working as a pediatric nurse, she is responsible for the murder of 4 children and the serious injury of 5 others in her care. When available, insulin or potassium injections were used to precipitate cardiac arrest; smothering sufficed when they were not. Although convicted with death or injury in nine cases, Allit attacked thirteen children over a fifty-eight day period before being caught red-handed. Allit has never spoken of the motive for her crimes, but Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy explains her actions. This debatable personality disorder involves a pattern of abuse or harm to someone in your care in order to garner attention (Alitt was known as a child to wear bandages and casts over wounds, but would not allow them to be examined).

#6. Belle GunnessBorn: 1859; Died: 1931

Belle Gunness was one of America’s most degenerate and productive female serial killers. Standing 6 ft (1.83 m) tall and weighing in at over 200 lbs (91 kg), she was an imposing and powerful woman of Norwegian descent. It is likely that she killed both her husbands and all of her children at different times, but it is certain that she murdered most of her suitors, boyfriends, and her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. The motive was greed-pure and simple; life insurance policies and assets stolen or swindled from her suitors became her source of income. Most reports put her death toll at more than twenty victims over several decades, with some claiming in excess of one hundred. Inconsistencies during her post mortem examination; the corpse was reported to be two inches shorter than Belle’s six feet, paved the way for Belle Gunnes to enter American criminal folklore, a female Bluebeard.

#5. Mary Ann CottonBorn: 1832; Died: 1873

Englishwoman Mary Ann Cotton is another for-profit serial killer, predating Belle Gunnes by thirty years. Married at age twenty to William Mowbray, the newlyweds settled in Plymouth, Devon, to start their family. The couple had five children, four of whom died of ‘gastric fever and stomach pains’. Moving back to the north-east, tragedy seemed to follow them; three more children born, three more children died. William soon followed his offspring, dying of an ‘intestinal disorder’ in January 1865. British Prudential promptly paid a 35 pound dividend, and a pattern was established. Her second husband, George Ward, died of intestinal problems as well as one of her two remaining children. The power of the press, always a force to be reckoned with, caught up with Mary Ann. The local newspapers discovered that as Mary Ann moved around northern England, she lost three husbands, a lover, a friend, her mother and a dozen children, all dying of stomach fever. She was hanged at Durham County Gaol, March 24, 1873, for murder by arsenic poisoning. She died slowly, the hangman using too short a drop for a ‘clean’ execution.

#4. Ilse KochBorn: 1906; Died: 1967

'Die Hexe von Buchenwald' the Witch of Buchenwald, or 'Buchenwälder Schlampe' the Bitch of Buchenwald was the wife of Karl Koch, commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941, and Majdanek from 1941 to 1943. Drunk on the absolute power rendered by her husband, she reveled in torture and obscenity. Infamous for her souvenirs; tattoos taken from the murdered inmates, her reputation for debauchery was well earned. After building an indoor sports arena in 1940, with 250,000 marks stolen from inmates, Ilsa was promoted to Oberaufseherin or “chief overseer” of the few female guards at Buchenwald. She committed suicide by hanging herself at Aichach women’s prison on September 1, 1967.

#3. Irma GreseBorn: 1923; Died: 1945

Another product of the Nazi’s final solution, Irma Grese or the “Bitch of Belsen” was a guard at concentration camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Transferred to Auschwitz in 1943, (she must have shown particular enthusiasm and dedication to the job), she was promoted to Senior Supervisor, the 2nd highest ranking female in camp, by the end of the year. In charge of over 30,000 Jewish female prisoners, she reveled in her work. Her work included; savaging of prisoners by her trained and half starved dogs, sexual excesses, arbitrary shootings, sadistic beatings with a plaited whip, and selecting prisoners for the gas chamber. She enjoyed both physical and emotional torture and habitually wore heavy boots and carried a pistol to facilitate both.

#2. Katherine KnightBorn: 1956 - in prison

The first Australian woman to be sentenced to a natural life term without parole, Katherine Knight had a history of violence in relationships. She mashed the dentures of one of her ex-husbands and slashed the throat of another husband’s eight-week-old puppy before his eyes. A heated relationship with John Charles Thomas Price became public knowledge with an Apprehended Violence Order that Price had filed against Knight and ended with Knight stabbing Price to death with a butcher’s knife. He had been stabbed at least 37 times, both front and back, with many of the wounds penetrating vital organs. She then skinned him and hung his “suit” from the door frame in the living room, cut off his head and put it in the soup pot, baked his buttocks, and prepared gravy and vegetables to accompany the ‘roast’. The meal and a vindictive note were set out for the children, luckily discovered by police before they arrived home.

#1. Elizabeth BathoryBorn: 1560; Died: 1614

Countess Bathory is generally considered the most infamous serial killer in Hungarian and Slovak history. Rumors had circulated for years about missing peasant girls; offered well paid work at the castle, they were never seen again. One of these rumors reached the ears of King Mathias II, who sent a party of men to the massive Castle Csejthe. The men found one girl dead and one dying. Another was found wounded and others locked up. Described atrocities, collected from testimony of witnesses, include; severe beatings over extended periods of time, the use of needles, burning or mutilation of hands, sometimes also of faces and genitalia, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other bodily parts, and the starving of victims. The victim total is thought to number in the hundreds occurring over a twenty-five year period. Due to her social status she was never brought to trial but remained under house arrest in a single room until her death. The idea that the Countess bathed in the blood of her victims is folklore, and one of the few things she did not do.

In order to clear one point up, Lizzie Borden is not on this list because she was found innocent of the murder of her parents.


From http://listverse.com

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Judas Iscar­iot

This is a special case in history. Nowadays we use to call anyone who’s a trai­tor Judas. That is how much we hate the guy. He will go down as prob­a­bly the most hated per­son in the history of the world since the term Judas has entered many languages as a synonym for betrayer. At least for Christians he became the archetypal traitor and everyone hates traitors but this traitor always had a spe­cial treatment since he is the only one who had the chance to betray God himself.


So, we really don't know if he deserved or not to be hated that much but that's really not our job since God himself put this guy on top of my most hated list. I could not question His judgement jumping into philosophical speculations. 

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Five Characteristics of Stupid Criminals

Stupid criminals are everyone's favorite joke. The news, television shows, and Internet videos all enjoy making fun of stupid criminals. It is always comforting to know that there is someone out there who is dumber than we are.

There are a number of characteristics that most stupid criminals share. For instance:

Characteristic Number 1: They never have a plan. Even the fact that so many of them get caught on camera proves this, as a smart criminal would never leave behind a sure-fire way to get caught. Additionally, these dumb offenders never seem to have any idea what to do next, instead bumbling through a series of mistakes that inevitably ends with them getting caught.

Characteristic Number 2: They typically take an average crime and screw it up beyond belief. Take, for instance, the liquor store robber who climbed into the building through the roof at night. Never mind the tried-and-true technique of entering the store masked and armed and demanding all the money in the cash register, this guy decided he was going to reinvent the wheel. Unfortunately, his bright idea didn't work out so well after all: He couldn't figure out how to get back out of the store afterward, and the security cameras caught the whole thing on video anyway.

Characteristic Number 3: They give themselves away. Some people seem to forget that this is the twenty-first century, and that there are such things as fingerprinting, video cameras, and other technology for tracking down criminals. As a result, you often find these outlaws forgetting to wear a mask and gloves, or take other precautions for preventing themselves from being discovered.

Characteristic Number 4: They never know when the game is up. In the 1990s, there was a video of a man who was pulled over for speeding, and then ran away from the cop on foot, never mind that the cop had his keys, his license, and his car. A lot of stupid criminals are like this: They just don't know when to quit. Running or fighting when you are good and caught is always a bad idea.

Characteristic Number 5: They almost always get caught. One hallmark of a stupid criminal is that he almost always lands himself in jail. Part of what is so funny about these crooks is that the mistakes they make almost always result in them getting caught.

Stupid criminals always do the darnedest things. There are a lot of them out there, but thankfully this usually means more entertainment for us. If someone you know tends to exhibit these traits, chances are you know a stupid criminal.

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The 100 Most Despicable People of All Time

Article from Big Empire.


The Big Empire salutes the 100 Most Despicable People of All Time. These are people whose cruelty, nauseating cuteness, or all-around creepiness have netted them a position in immortality. The list includes people you may not know, because not only the rich and famous are wicked and cruel. On those names you don't recognize, you'll just have to take our word that you don't ever want to meet them. The number in parentheses after each name is the number of votes each despicable person got from our panel of experts.

100. Dave Barry (4) - Until he gives Brett "alert reader" status, we will hate him
99. Joe McCarthy (5) So jerky!
98. Little Jimmy Filmstrip, the inane mascot of AMC Theatres (5) Grrrrrrrrrrr!
97. The cast of Saturday Night Live (6) Revolting!
96. Dr. Evil ( 6) Evil! Really Evil!
95. Jeffrey Katzenberg (6) Eisner was right on the money about this midget.
94. Dr. Kevorkian ( 7) Deadly!
93. Xerxes of Persia (7) Despotic!
92. The developer who built Vista Shores over part of Muir Woods (8) ­ Feeble-minded!
91. The Joker (8) Villainous!
90. Benedict Arnold (8) Turn-coat!
89. Richard Wagner (8) Creepy!
88. Philip of Macedonia (9) Greedy!
87. Aaron Spelling (9) - First Charlie's Angels, then Tori. What could his devious mind have planned next?
86. Dr. Goldfoot (9) for the abomination that was the bikini machine.
85. Dr. No (10) for being so goshdarn negative.
84. Rob Schneider (10) - He's the only person in America who has to get better to be as funny as Adam Sandler.
83. That punk kid that Dirty Harry had to blow away (10) ­ The only good thing to be said about him is that he made Dirty Harry's day.
82. Lex Luthor (10) Scheming!
81. Jim Carrey (10) Putrid!
80. Daddy Warbucks (10) - He has no pupils! That's just plain unnatural.
79. Don Rickles (10) Mean!
78. Augusto Pinochet (11) Malevolent!
77. Nora Ephron (10) Icky!
76. Dan Ackroyd (10) for believing he can represent the blues.
75. Jerry Lewis (10) because even though he's adored by the French, he's still not a nice man.
74. Howard Stern (10) for making the FCC require that any list of influential people include his name.
73. Phil Knight (11) for amoral business practices and being such a visible embodiment of insatiable corporate money-grubbing.
72. Danielle Steel (11) for writing so many volumes of total crap.
71. Hillary Rodham Clinton (12) for trying to ride sympathy to a senate seat, though she's no angel herself.
70. Jeff Bezos (12) for being inescapable.
69. Ronald Reagan (12) for being such a creepy, sleazy, deficit-spending head of a nation. 
68. Tom Shane (12) - No matter what he says, he ain't no friend of mine.
67. Peter Frampton (12) for his own excessive guitar noodling.
66. Lenny Kravitz (13) for ripping off the excessive guitar noodling of dead people.
65. Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine (13) for being such an obvious poseur.
64. Justin from "The Real World" (13) - That backbiting little bitch! I thought he was the normal one.
63. Al Capone (13) for besmirching Valentine's Day with gangster gore.
62. Madonna (14) for the whole pointy boob debacle.
61. The security guard at Stanford (14) for trying to take away my skateboard when I was 15.
60. Mel Sharples (15) - Vera was a sweetheart, but you wouldn't know it talking to this jerk.
59. Gene Roddenberry (15) for creating a monster.
58. Saddam Hussein (15) for tryin' to mess with the U.S.A. ... U!S!A! U!S!A!




57. Ryan Keith (16) for being the snootiest kid in the UC Irvine Civil Engineering Program
56. Maria Salas (16) for being such a toadying, disgusting quote whore.
55. Bill Gates (16) - One can't help but feel that someone so rich is despicable for not just giving away, like, a billion dollars.
54. Colonel Sanders (17) for killing more people than the Marlboro Man and Joe Camel combined.
53. Ted Turner (16) for colorizing Casablanca, that doof!
52. George Bush (17) for being such a creepy, sleazy head of a nation.
51. Jack the Ripper (17) for disemboweling women and then having a whole episode of "In Search Of" devoted to him.
50. Rob Proctor (18) ­ According to him, every single one of you has an attitude problem.
49. Mohammar El Quadafi (18) - That bombing pipsqueak tried to mess with the USA! Freakin' Libya! Huh!
48. Paul O'Neill (18) ­ He's an arrogant fuck.
47. Randy Shandis (18) - This one goes without saying.
46. Emperor Hirohito (18) ­ Remember the Arizona!
45. Ignatz Mouse (19) - Although at times he's sweet, he really shouldn't always hit Krazy Kat with a brick.
44. Slobodan Milosevic (19) - Why couldn't the evil, genocidal dictators be named John Smith once in a while? It would make our lives so much easier.
43. Jim Davis (19) Somebody shove Garfield up his ass. Even he knows his strip isn't funny. 
42. King Nebuchadnezzar (19) ­ Because he believed he was greater than God, God made him act like a cow. Ah, comeuppance!
41. Little Monkey on Super Mario 64 who steals Mario's hat (20) - Mario looks really dumb without his hat, and besides, it doesn't belong to the monkey.
40. The women who wrote the song "Happy Birthday To You" (20) - Enough already!
39. The Staff of Gaming Today (20)- We're probably legally obligated not to accuse them of stealing from us, but they did!
38. Whichever cab driver happens to be honking his or her horn somewhere in New York City right at this moment (20) - That terrible sound bores into our brains.
37. Sam Degennicus (21)- I don't know if that's how his last name was spelled, but this pretentious, long-haired phony had the girls at my school fooled.
36. Harry S Truman (21) ­ He unleashed the destructive power of the nuclear bomb on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
35. King Herod (22) ­ You have to be pretty damn insecure to go around killing babies.
34. All the girls that told Brett to get lost in the past millennium (22) - That list is pretty long; it will probably only be surpassed by the number of girls that will tell Brett to get lost in the new millennium
33. Bjorn Borg (22) ­ We hold him personally responsible for that damn hairstyle now used by such asses as Don Sutton and Kenny G.
32. Don Sutton (22) ­ "a classless jerk," LA Times letters to the editor, October '99
31. The makers of "Full House" (22) ­ It's horrible!
30. The makers of Soylent Green (23) ­ It's people!
29. Will Clark (23) ­ The Thrill may be gone, but we will only be happy when he is dead
28. Ben Affleck (23) ­ We hope this smug, worthless frat boy ends up dead in a ditch, with a pitchfork rammed up his ass.
27. Queen Jezebel (24) ­ Even her dogs hated her, except as dinner.
26. Adam Sandler (25) - He urinates on buildings (literally) and on movie audiences (figuratively).
25. Bobby "The Brain" Heenan (25) - He always used to cheat to win--always!
24. Nero (25) ­ He didn't even fiddle particularly well.
23. Roger Smith of General Motors (25) ­ The cowardly prick refused to grant Michael Moore a personal interview.
22. O. J. Simpson (25) - What, you think he's on this list because of his Hertz commercials?
21. Jesse Helms (25) - He embodies the worst of self-righteousness, while we represent the best of it.
20. Cardinal Richilieu (26) - We've had enough of his power mad antics!
19. Dr. Shrinker (26) - He made everyone feel so very small.
18. Jim Jones (26) ­ He inspired a generation's worth of tacky Flavor-Aid jokes.
17. Marie Antoinette (26) - That "cake" comment was just so bitchy! And, we hate her for flaunting that nobility crap right into her grave,
16. Those kids who don't let the rabbit eat Trix (27)- After all these years, would it kill them to show a little mercy?
15. Richard Simmons (28) ­ A little known fact is that the punishment on the fifth circle of Hell is forced viewing of "Sweatin' to the Oldies II."
14. Lucille Ball (30) - She is so unfunny that it kills us.
13. Christopher Columbus (30)­ What he really discovered was how to kill the native peoples of the New World.
12. Walt Disney (30) -His vision had the innate potential of being twisted into the disease of corporate greed that his name now represents.
11. The Emperor Caligula (31) - Emperor Caligula believed that being the leader of his country gave him the right to bend sexual mores around himself. And, according to many eminent historians, he was one skanky ho.

10. Judas Iscariot (31)
Faster than you can say "thirty pieces of silver," this disloyal son of a bitch betrayed Jesus to the Romans. That was not a good thing to do at all. Anyway, what could thirty pieces of silver get you back in those days? A pack of gum? However, unlike everybody else on this list, he was finally sorry for what he did and hung himself.

9. Pat Buchanan (32) Each time this intolerant boob runs for office, imagining what life would be like under his thumb scares the poop out of me. He promises to make the presidency "a bully pulpit" for his own backward set of values. That means hard times for anyone who doesn't look like Heidi's grandfather (see #1). And the worst thing is that he keeps repeating "bully pulpit" over and over, and it's really super annoying. I'd like to bully pulpit him!

8. Mike Piazza (35) Not only is this bum incapable of throwing out baserunners or stopping low pitches, but his hair looks like somebody's guinea pig climbed up on his head and crapped down his neck. Perhaps Mr. Piazza ranks as so despicable because a large fraction of the selection committee had to see him naked in the Mets clubhouse earlier this year. His doughy belly and glazed-over stare make an indelible impression. Mr. Piazza is the epitome of stupid and arrogant, while being an ugly son-of-a-bitch.

7. Tommy Lasorda (40) Tommy Lasorda is fat and evil, in that order. He forced his way into our world in 1927, and God only knows when we'll be rid of his sorry and blubbery ass. In 20 years with the Dodgers, he took baseball's best farm system and made them perennially mediocre. Also, during that time, he was more interested in being America's most disgusting celebrity than a manager. Of late, Tommy hasn't been getting enough pasta, so he's been shoving his foot in his mouth by spewing lies about how he illegally signed a 15 year old Cuban kid. We don't want to guess what else Tommy did to him.

6. Richard Nixon (40) Tricky Dick was shady, shady enough for a whole damn forest. First, he was so power-hungry he broke the law, and then he was vain enough to keep thorough records of his illegal activities. Second, his antics disillusioned an entire nation and forced them to turn to disco and Gerald Ford for solace. Finally, if I have to hear one more person say, "I am not a crook" and wiggle his slobbery jowls, I will go nuts.

5. Ming the Merciless (46) King Features Syndicates says Ming is a "Tyrant. Dictator. The most evil and most hated man in the universe," If the people who make the Sunday Funnies believe this, imagine what other world leaders think. Perhaps he is not mentioned alongside tyrants Slobodan Milosevic and Prime Minister Chretien because he's just too frightening. Ming is easily the most ruthless Chinese leader our experts could think of, and he apparently ruled in outer space. The history books say Ming viciously enslaved the inhabitants of Mongo, and then he started holding pretty girls against their wills. His dynasty is a chilly reminder that as long there is evil and outer space, we will never be truly safe.

4. Matt's mom (84) Matt's mom has lived a nearly saint-like existence of giving to me and my three ungrateful sisters. But, when she was despicable, she was horrid. At age five, Matt was caught scrawling "Matt Loves his Mom" on a neighbor's wall and when his mother found out, she sent him to his room. And once she served "Pickle Surprise Meatloaf." It was awful, but worse still was that the "surprise" was the pickle. That's like Agatha Christie naming one of her mysteries "The Butler Did It." She has made Matt the bitter, incompetent prune of a man he is today.

3. Rupert Murdoch (68) "For better or for worse, our company (News Corp) is a reflection of my thinking, my character, my values." -- Rupert Murdoch Bringing crappy tabloid journalism to the limeys and shitty baseball to Los Angeles are the equivalent of pouring piss down people's throats while you punch them in the stomach. His greasing of LA Mayor Riordan's palm for $49,000 and his Sun's payment of $50,000 for photos of Diana smell of character and values about as refreshing as an armpit on a summer afternoon in Hong Kong.

2. Adolf Hitler (185 points) Throughout human history, hundreds of evil, bigoted, murderous, greedy, despotic, chicken-necked rulers have wreaked havoc in people's lives, but this sicko sunk to new lows and became a brand name for ethnic cleansing and deranged fascism in the process. Not only did he attempt world domination while killing off anyone who didn't look like Heidi, he also irrevocably ruined khaki and Alsatians for everybody else. In the words of one Big Empire expert, "Man, what a fascist jerk!" 1. Josef Stalin (110) I'm no historian, but my response to this particular result was, "No doubt!" Stalin wasn't even this guy's real name. He only called himself that because it translated to "Man of Steel," or "Metal-head" or something like that. I'm not making this up. He was the type of guy who would plot to gain power and then kill all his friends because he thought they were plotting against him. So he killed his friends, family, nation and when he finished he started with the other nations. That kind of behavior certainly doesn't get you invited to parties. He was also the type of guy who would murder tens of millions of people, just because he could. He holds the world record with more than 60 million deaths.

Other Villains of Note: Dianne Rheem , Any programmer for the American Forces Network (AFN), the guy who invented Muzak, Scott Adams, Andy Warhol, Charles Manson, the Marquis de Sade, The Bad, The Ugly, Steve Wynn and Jewel

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Historic Criminals of Wall Street

Wall Street Sharks

Over the years Wall Street has had it's share of criminals, who left behind despair and loss. To fully understand what these criminals did we must examine the individuals themselves, what they did and what is the legacy that they leave behind as a result of their misdeeds. While no two are alike the lasting effects of their crimes can still be felt by Main Street to this very day. In the article below we will examine as well as gain a greater understanding of some of the largest Wall Street shar to include: Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Bernard Ebbers and Richard Whitney.

Criminals of Wall Street

A criminal is someone who has committed a crime and been found guilty in a court of law of committing that crime or others. Since the beginning Wall Street has always had the criminals trying to hide themselves among the honest business people. The crimes or scams that they have committed have been everything from insider trading to fleecing the companies they run and investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Below are some of the most famous and unscrupulous Wall Street criminals.

Ivan Boesky 

Ivan Boesky in Time magazine

Ivan Boesky's career on Wall Street began in 1966 as a stock analyst. In 1975 he had started his own arbitrage firm. By the 1980's his net worth was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. Ivan looked for companies that were the target of takeovers. He would then buy a stake in the company on speculation that news of a takeover was going to be announced and then sell the shares after the announcement for a profit. Throughout the 1980's corporate mergers and takeovers were enormous. It 1986 there was almost 3,000 mergers worth $130 billion. Before the deals were announced the price of the stocks were rising as a result of someone acting on inside information that a takeover or leveraged buyout was going to be announced. When something like this happens it a sign insider trading (where you are acting on information that is not made available to the public) and is illegal. This was indeed the case with the Pacific Lumbar three days before the deal was announced Boesky had purchase 10,000 shares. As result of these and other insider trading activities Boesky was charged with stock manipulation from inside information on November 14, 1986. He agreed to pay $100 million fine along with being banned from trading stock professionally for life and serve time in a federal prison . He cooperated with the SEC, taping his conversations with Junk Bond Firms and others. This led to both Drexel Burnham and Michael Milken being charged with securities fraud. The legacy that he leaves is one where greed at any cost does not work. If you break the law eventually you will be caught. As result of these actions of Boesky and others, Congress passed the Insider Trading Act of 1988. The act increases penalties for insider trading, provides cash rewards to whistle blowers, and allows individuals to sue for damages because of insider trading violations.




Michael Milken: In the 1980's Michael Milken was known as the junk bond king. A junk bond is nothing more than those corporations who have a high probability of not paying the money back. If you wanted to raise money through high yield or junk bonds Milken was the person to call. He used these bond to finance merger and acquisitions as well as leveraged buyouts (LBO's) for corporate raiders. What he was doing was nothing more than a complex pyramid scheme. When one company would default he would then refinance some more debt. In turn both Milken and the Drexel Burnham would continue to make their fees as a result of this action. Drexel Burnham had made at least half of it's profits from the work of Milken. Later on Milken also started purchasing stock in companies that he knew would become potential takeover targets. When Ivan Boesky was charged with insider trading in 1986 he helped implicate both the firm and Milken in several insider trading scandals. This led to criminal charges against the firm and over 70 charges against Milken. He plead guilty and was sentenced 10 years in prison and paid $1 billion in fines. It is argued that the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 1980's and early 1990's resulted because so many of the institutions held large of amounts of Milken junk bonds. This resulted in a huge government bailout. After he was released from prison he focused his attention on his foundation which supports cancer research, an economic think tank and education.




Bernard Ebbers


Bernard "Bernie" Ebbers was the CEO of a small long distance company called World Com. With in 17 years he had taken the company to a position of dominance in the telecommunications industry. By 2002 the company had filled the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. What happened is that over a six year period is the company had made 63 acquisitions the largest one was MCI in 1997. This created several problems for the company in that it can be difficult to integrate the old company with the new. Second it threw massive amounts of debt on the company's balance sheet. To keep earnings growing the company would write millions of dollars in losses of the company it acquired in the current quarter and then have smaller losses going forward so that there was the perception that the company was making more money than it really was. This gave World Com the ability to take smaller charges against its earnings every year and spread the large losses over decades. All of this worked great until the Justice Department denied the company's acquisition of Sprint in 2000. When the company filed for bankruptcy they admitted that it inappropriately booked these losses from previous acquisitions from the period of 1999 to 2002. Ebbers also took personal loans from the company and resigned as CEO in April 2002. He was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and filling false documents with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ebbers legacy created tighter reporting standards with the creation of the Sarbanes Oxley Act in 2002 as well as the forbidding of personal loans to officers of the company and stiffer penalties for financial related crimes.

Richard Whitney 


Richard Whiteny was the President of the New York Stock Exchange from 1930 to 1935. On October 24, 1929 he bought shares in many companies and the market had dramatic turnaround. This allowed him to be viewed as a hero to the market but did little to prevent it's inevitable crash five days later. By 1930 he was made the President of the New York Stock Exchange. Whitney, was an unlucky gambler who played penny and blue chip stocks aggressively. To cover his losses he would borrow money from friends and business acquaintances. This would allow him to buy even more stock in a market that was collapsing, which made his problems even worse. In spite of all of this happening he continued to live a lavish lifestyle. When he could no longer borrow any more money he began to embezzle money from the from his customers as well as an organization to help widows and orphans. As time went on his fraud continued to become more perverse when he looted the New York Stock Exchange's Gratuity Fund of up to $1 million. This was fund was suppose to pay $20,000 to each members estate upon death, as treasurer he decided that it was proper for him to steal from it. After an audit discovered the embezzlement he was charged with two counts of embezzlement and sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison. The newly formed Securities and Exchange Commission required more frequent audits, it set caps on how much debt firms can have and customer accounts are now separate from the property of brokerage firms. This is the legacy that Richard Whitney left to Main Street.

Conclusion

Since Wall Street's earliest days there have been criminals who will try to disguise themselves as honest business people. Many of these crooks rose quickly to power only to have a hard crash landing in the end. This was exactly the case with Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, Bernard Ebbers and Richard Whitney. While nothing will ever excuse what they did it, in Milken's case he has tried to do some good by having a foundation for the benefit of cancer patients, economics and education. What their examples show us is that in spite of all the regulations people will still try to find loop holes around them or simply disregard the law for one purpose greed at all costs. When these criminals have been exposed the government will then enact laws to protect the public from this happening again. This is the legacy that the criminals of Wall Street have on Main Street.

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