From exchange floor to prison yard

You've got to feel for the Madoffs and Stanfords of this world. Federal prison is no country club and you suspect that these well-to-do white collar crooks are in for a bit of a shock when they get thrown in with the riff-raff.

But never fear, Larry Levine is here to help them adjust. Larry served 10 years for fraud and drug dealing and he's putting that experience to good use with his firm Wall Street Prison Consultants and its Fedtime 101 "survival program".

For as little as $1499 you can complete a telephone course that will teach you, among other things, inmate etiquette and politics, how to deal with gang members, microwave cooking techniques and how to survive a riot.

You can also buy a deck of financial crisis most wanted playing cards (Madoff is the ace of spades).

Larry's gone straight and is just tying to make an honest buck but he's getting hassled by the New York Stock Exchange.

According to the Guardian, Nyse has taken exception to photos of its building and trading floor above the tag line "Going From The Exchange Floor To The Prison Yard" on his Web site.

The paper has obtained a copy of a letter from the exchange's SVP for legal affairs, Janet Parkhurst to Wall Street Prison Consultants.

It says: "Your unauthorised use of the images of the facade and the trading floor, as well as your unauthorised references to Nyse and the trading floor, and the use of these to draw false connections between Nyse and criminal behaviour, tarnishes the image of the NYSE and its affiliated companies."

I've some sympathy with Levine's response: "The Nyse is in the dark if they believe that my use of their images tarnishes their reputation when Wall Street is full of dirty traders."

H/T FTalphaville