Raj Rajaratnam, billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, a major hedge fund, is led in handcuffs from FBI headquarters in New York on Friday, Oct.16, 2009. Rajaratnam was charged with insider trading in the stock of several companies including Hilton, Clearwire, and Google. (AP)

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This latest Wall Street story is ready-made for the big screen — insider trading cases as colorful and egregious as they come.

At the center, Galleon hedge fund chief Raj Rajaratnam, an outsized personality with a Rolodex spanning Silicon Valley and beyond. His counterpart — “Octopussy” — well, the name speaks for itself.

The cases unveil a world where everyone is after an edge. Where regulators are shut out. Where hot tips turn into huge windfalls. And where the difference between a tip and insider information can be a very blurry line.

This hour, On Point: big insider trading busts, and what they mean for the rest of us.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Guests:

Joining us from New York is Gregory Zuckerman, a senior writer and columnist for The Wall Street Journal who has closely followed these insider trading cases. Read his recent coverage here and here. His new book, out this month, is “The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of how John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History.”

From Philadelphia, we’re joined by Arthur Laby, professor of law at Rutgers School of Law. Before joining the Rutgers faculty he served nearly ten years on the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also from New York, we’re joined by Richard Sylla, professor of economics and the history of financial institutions at New York University Stern School of Business. His books include “The American Capital Market” and “A History of Interest Rates.”

George Soros (Photo: AP)

Billionaire investor, philanthropist, and political player George Soros made his fortune riding the winds of high finance.

Now, he says, the global economy is blowing out of a tremendous bubble. Not a normal bubble, but a “superbubble” that’s coming apart in a superbust.

Soros was there for the dawn of the hedge fund and the high-leverage finance that’s now coming back to bite — in housing and oil and debt and a credit crunch. We’re in for financial destruction and a breakdown of world order, he says. Oh, great.

This hour, On Point: As the economy shakes, a conversation with George Soros.

-Tom Ashbrook

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Guests:

George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management and of the Open Society Institute. His new book is “The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means.” (Read an excerpt here.)

Greg Ip, chief economics editor at The Wall Sreet Journal, soon to be U.S. economics editor for The Economist. His interview with George Soros appeared in The Journal on June 21.