Dear John: Although I admire your quest to get information on the Plunge Protection Team, I’m not sure why you are doing so. Seems to me, if you consider it OK – in the public interest, as you say, – for the PPT to intervene in some emergencies, then you essentially consider it OK to intervene at all times.
Because who determines what a real emergency is? Where do you draw the line? You either believe in a free market or you don’t. I.G.
Dear I.G.: I’ve wrestled with this question, and I don’t think I’ve come up with a perfect answer – but perhaps a satisfactory one.
If outside forces are threatening our financial stability, then I think it’s okay for the government to intervene in the markets. Thus I believe it was right for Washington to stabilize the stock market – as I think it did – after 9/11.
Or, if some sort of financial terrorism was being waged against the U.S. -then that, too, would be adequate reason for a temporary response.
The Plunge Protection Team is really called the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and – while it acts in secret – I think it was chartered to come to Wall Street’s rescue.
But I believe there is the real possibility that a group like this will be abused. You make a good point: Who gets to decide when there’s an emergency? Is there one, for instance, if a stock market decline threatens an incumbent president’s chances of staying in the White House?
That is why I believe the actions of the Working Group need to have a light shone on them.
Dear John: After reading your column I thought I would do something I have never done before. I said, let me write to him and see if he can give me any help.
First, a little background: in 1986 at the age of 21, I was sentenced to 25 years to life for trying to prove my innocence of a crime in Staten Island.
I was found guilty of robbery and burglary. I wasn’t caught doing the crime. And the complainant could not I.D. me, and said “all blacks look alike.” The District Attorney got a drug-using dude to finger me. His fingerprints were found at the crime scene, but the D.A. allowed him to plead guilty and he got 1½ to 3 years. Can you help? R.M.
Dear R.M.: You do realize that this is a financial column, don’t you?
Now if you had told me you robbed someone and wanted to know how the money should be invested, I might have been able to help. But what do I know about the criminal justice system in Staten Island? How am I going to get this by my editor without him rubbing his chin and saying “Crudele, you’ve gone too far again.” (The last time was when I covered a doggie fashion show.)
However, if any lawyer out there in Staten Island feels like spending time on your case, he or she can contact me and I will pass along their name and number.
Good luck. And, hey, think long-term investments for all the money you are earning in the can.
Send your questions to Dear John, The N.Y. Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, N.Y., N.Y., 10036, or [email protected].