SEC In "Complete Panic" Over Madoff

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SEC In "Complete Panic" Over Madoff
12.21.08 -- 9:33AM
By David Kurtz


A veteran staffer in the SEC's enforcement division tells TPMmuckraker's Zack Roth that the agency is in a "state of complete panic" over Bernie Madoff's $50 billion fraud.

At the same time that the agency is trying to unravel the unprecedented decades-long scheme, staff is being ordered not to destroy any records related to its earlier investigations of Madoff because of inside and outside probes into the SEC's own role in not catching Madoff sooner.

Meanwhile, paranoia has set in, we're told, and junior staff has been ordered to go back and review other cases the SEC has closed in recent years out of fear that violations may have been missed in those cases, too.

Who's behind this creeping socialism?! It's Bill Clinton, isn't it? Or Jimmy Carter! By golly, let Wall Street be Wall Street!

Answer: LOTS. The entire bush/cheney government is crooked and incompetent.

Cox "Worked to Dismantle The SEC," Says Commission Vet
By Zachary Roth - December 19, 2008, 1:32PM


There's no longer much debate about the fact that the SEC badly slipped up by failing to catch Bernard Madoff's alleged "$50 billion ponzi scheme." Even commission chair Chris Cox lamented "multiple failures over at least a decade" in the matter. And yesterday President-elect Barack Obama declared that the commission had "dropped the ball."

But it's also becoming clear that the Madoff failures didn't arise out of nowhere. In recent years, particularly under Cox, a former California GOP congressman, the SEC has pursued a policy of de-emphasizing enforcement, part of the broader anti-regulatory philosophy of the Bush years -- helping to make Madoff, and perhaps others like him, possible.

"{Cox} in many ways worked to dismantle the SEC," Ed Nordlinger, a former longtime enforcement director in the commission's New York office, told TPMmuckraker. "He slowed everything down. I don't think he believed in heavy regulation."

That view has been echoed by several others in a position to know. Ross Albert told TPMmuckraker for a post published yesterday: "Under Cox, SEC had de-emphasized the enforcement program. Cox worshipped at the same altar of de-regulation that the rest of the Bush administration worshipped at."

more...

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/cox_worked_to_dismantle_the_se.php

This was a right call