Chronic. It is "One of the greatest financiers in the United States", whoever has "Democratize corporate finance by providing women and minorities with access to capital that would otherwise have been inaccessible to them". The White House did not do half-measures on Tuesday, February 18, to justify the presidential pardon granted to Michael Milken.
This prerogative provided for by article two of the American Constitution, Bill Clinton, in 2001, and George W. Bush, in 2008, had however refused to exercise it in favor of this ex-financier fallen and reconverted since in philanthropy in benefit, in particular, of the fight against prostate cancer. Donald Trump did not hesitate to rehabilitate the man who was behind what has been called the "Valentine's Day massacre".
It was just thirty years ago. Wall Street's most profitable and feared business bank, Drexel Burnham Lambert (DBL), went bankrupt, leaving 6,000 employees on the job. At the origin of the disaster: Michael Milken, known as "the king of junk bonds", which can be translated by "rotten bonds", of which he was the pioneer. For years, these speculative products will be the main fuel for hussar stock market raids, some of which are illegal. DBL was THE firm, the one capable of accelerating careers, attracting the best, enriching itself with lightning speed.
Hundreds of thousands of ruined savers
Under Milken's wand, the bank will hold up to 60% of this high-yield bond market, before the system falters during the Savings and Loan crisis, the American savings banks, over the years 1990, with hundreds of thousands of ruined savings at the end, 1,600 financial institutions on the flank, $ 150 billion of public money mobilized and an unprecedented collapse in real estate since the Second World War.
Milken's acrobatics and a final annual bonus of 500 million dollars ended up arousing the jealousy of the competitors and the suspicion of Rudolph Giuliani, then attorney general of New York, future mayor of the city and now close adviser to Donald Trump. . The investigation will reveal that behind the stratospheric performances were hidden insider trading and price manipulation.
