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Originally Posted by sugarpop
Did anyone catch the hearings with Harry Markopolos? He's the man who tried, for YEARS, to get the SEC to do something about Madoff. He gave pretty scathing testimony about how inept they are earlier this week.
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It has been noted here for years. During the Enron hearings, both Democrats and Republicans wanted to double the SEC budget. Harvey Pitts, the SEC Chairman refused the money. Even at the start of 2000s, the political agenda was to subvert oversight in the name of deregulation.
Previously, Clinton also tried to increase the SEC Budget. Congressional Republicans were united in their threat. If Clinton tried to increase SEC powers, then the political agenda would remove all SEC funding. Clinton backed down.
Some ask if this about philosophy. Reasons for outright fraud were apparent even in LTCM, Enron, and the mythical CA energy crisis. Even First Energy created the NorthEast blackout. Even First Energy violated a long list of operational requirements and was exonerated as lies about an obsolete grid, instead, were promoted. Even First Energy operated a nuclear reactor with a hole in its cap and other complications that could have taken out Toledo. Technical violations were all but encouraged by deregulation. Deregulation designed to eliminate oversight and responsibility to the product in the name of profits short term profits.
Madoff is only another example of what we encouraged and created at the highest levels of government. Engineers were even denied facts necessary to save the Columbia because managers were more interested in their politics and image rather than in technical facts. My god. The President even outrightly lied about Saddam's WMDs when facts said otherwise were even withheld. These are accidents? Hardly. We did not even hold him responsible. Why should SEC investigations of Madoff be anything different?
Those SEC investigators were only doing what we wanted the administration to impose on them. Least paid government employees were in the SEC. That political agenda was painfully obvious when Harvey Pitts testified before Congress and refused to take a budget increase. Where were you when the problem was so painfully obvious?
Government did what we wanted for the past 10 years. Where is the investigation of Morgan Stanley and other for manipulating oil prices? When do we prosecute others for intentionally creating the CA energy crisis? Why is Madoff any different? In those other cases, we considered these accidents? Even the State of Oklahoma had to embarrass the Federal government and file suit against Enron before the Feds would finally prosecute.