but as nearly as anyone can make out he never regretted his actions until he was caught.
Could be. It's entirely possible that he really is that much of a sociopath, but I don't think the story I've seen so far requires that. He managed to build up a structure that pretty much required him to just keep going, or it would all collapse pretty fast, and the crime grew ever larger as he went.
I honestly don't see any way he *could* right the ship after those first few years -- he built up the firm on an impossible premise (that he could deliver reliable earnings in an unreliable market), and if he admitted that fundamental untruth, even by having "a bad year", it likely would have led to a run on the fund, destroying it and revealing the crime. So he just kept building it instead.
We'll see -- I'll be very interested to read the full history once it gets properly worked out. But so far, I don't see anything that requires a really sociopathic lack of remorse, just a fair dollop of ordinary moral cowardice and greed...
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Date: 2009-03-17 03:39 pm (UTC)Could be. It's entirely possible that he really is that much of a sociopath, but I don't think the story I've seen so far requires that. He managed to build up a structure that pretty much required him to just keep going, or it would all collapse pretty fast, and the crime grew ever larger as he went.
I honestly don't see any way he *could* right the ship after those first few years -- he built up the firm on an impossible premise (that he could deliver reliable earnings in an unreliable market), and if he admitted that fundamental untruth, even by having "a bad year", it likely would have led to a run on the fund, destroying it and revealing the crime. So he just kept building it instead.
We'll see -- I'll be very interested to read the full history once it gets properly worked out. But so far, I don't see anything that requires a really sociopathic lack of remorse, just a fair dollop of ordinary moral cowardice and greed...