I can't quite remember but I just watched "Wall Street" today (and I kinda disagree with the whole concept of insider trading being illegal anyway ) so I thought of it again. Haven't read the books in years but his friend (the black admiral - Johnson? Jackson? can't remember) told him about that Navy deal (ships? or was it planes? I think ships?) and Ryan bought lots and lots of stock and his broker bought some too and then he got filthy reach (like 90 million or something?). Later - in the one where he becomes president IIRC - there's an off-hand comment that says that there was an investigation but Ryan was found not guilty or that they found nothing that pointed to insider trading or something. But honestly - he was guilty, right?
At the time Jack Ryan was on Wall Street, his friend (F-14 pilot Robbie Jackson) was only a low ranking naval officer and would not have been likely to have any usefull information of that level.
Insider trading is illegal so that companies can't purposely deceive people into buying their stock when in fact they know it's worthless, among other things. Sorta like Enron.
He was far enough off the standard definition of insider trading that he was able to pull it into full legality by doing documented research on the matter, which is how you avoid an insider trading bust for trading on "rumors".
IE... sure you got the answer to the math problem out of the back of the book, but if you write out the problem you won't get busted...
Ryan "made his pile" on a tip he received from an uncle which alluded to the workers' takeover of the Chicago and North Western Railroad. He made approximately $6 million off his $100,000 initial investment. IIRC, Ryan got the Silicon Alchemy stock tip during the events of Patriot Games, when he was teaching at the Naval Academy.
So the Silicon Alchemy deal was the naval deal (ships, I think)? And yeah, he wasn't working on Wall Street anymore when he got that tip I was thinking about. So Ryan actually got rich by using insider information TWICE?
I felt real bad for Clancy after 9-11. WTF are you supposed to do when the real world gets stranger than your fiction?
Clancy was fully justified in saying, "I told you so" following 9/11. I would so have him onboard at Homeland Security or the Pentagon imagining possible terror attack scenarios.
On 11 September 01, the first thing I thought was "This is just like the ending of Debt of Honor!" I'm still re-reading his books in chronological order (I'm up to Executive Orders) and it's pretty weird with the Iran/United Islamic Republic stuff. The funny part is that when a lot of Clancy's, Coyle's (Team Yankee) and Peters' (Red Army) books were written, they were "what if" books. Now, they read like alternative history.
