Securities 101

I realized that I'd reached adulthood when I opened up the Times last winter and learned that the guy who sat next to me for a semester of Securities Regulations was convicted of insider trading. Holy crap, I was at the age and point in my career where my peers got arrested not (just) for disorderly conduct outside of the Republican convention, but for white-collar crime?! I had been convinced that I was the most clueless in the class. Maybe I wasn't. Well no, I probably still was, but I was smart enough to recognize my denseness and refrained from crossing the line to stupidity. I wouldn't know how to go about committing securities fraud if I tried. I ended up with a B- and he got an A. But apparantly now he also got 3 to 5.