The Will to Regulate
By LAURA FLANDERS
Tne of the best kept secrets in Washington is the working of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Does it get the job done? Not even close.
Typically, Wall Street is awash in insider trading, accounting games, and let's not forget campaign contributions -- and SEC lawyers are outgunned and outmaneuvered. All this was known before the Bernard Madoff scandal put the SEC to shame and dozens of kiss-and-tell best sellers were published by ex-financiers who, having stashed away enough for themselves and their dynasty of future children, came forward with sordid tales of pocket stuffing.
The agency may have been weak thorughout the Bush years, but it's not
just the way, it's the will. Back in '93, in Clintontimes, Mary Schapiro told an audience in Switzerland that "a more flexible regulatory paradigm" would benefit the financial world. And she wasn't alone: over at the White House, chief economist Bob Rubin was saying the same.
Rubin, who cashed out of Goldman Sachs with hundreds of millions of dollars, and his lieutenant, Larry Summers, who made millions at a hedge fund, went on to run the Treasury Department. There, this dynamic duo unleashed the forces not of regulation -- but its reverse -- laying the foundation for the awful mess we are familiar with -- speculation upon speculation and leverage upon leverage -- producing profits galore but few jobs.
Even the best intentioned SEC, under the the reformed and revitalized Mary Schapiro, can put but a dent in a system so skewed. The case against Goldman's juicy, but juicier to investors are the bank's first quarter returns -- which are up. It'll take more than Ms. Schapiro's lawsuit to topple the applecart of massive accumulation for some and next to nothing for the rest of us.
By LAURA FLANDERS
Tne of the best kept secrets in Washington is the working of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Does it get the job done? Not even close.
Typically, Wall Street is awash in insider trading, accounting games, and let's not forget campaign contributions -- and SEC lawyers are outgunned and outmaneuvered. All this was known before the Bernard Madoff scandal put the SEC to shame and dozens of kiss-and-tell best sellers were published by ex-financiers who, having stashed away enough for themselves and their dynasty of future children, came forward with sordid tales of pocket stuffing.
The agency may have been weak thorughout the Bush years, but it's not
just the way, it's the will. Back in '93, in Clintontimes, Mary Schapiro told an audience in Switzerland that "a more flexible regulatory paradigm" would benefit the financial world. And she wasn't alone: over at the White House, chief economist Bob Rubin was saying the same.
Rubin, who cashed out of Goldman Sachs with hundreds of millions of dollars, and his lieutenant, Larry Summers, who made millions at a hedge fund, went on to run the Treasury Department. There, this dynamic duo unleashed the forces not of regulation -- but its reverse -- laying the foundation for the awful mess we are familiar with -- speculation upon speculation and leverage upon leverage -- producing profits galore but few jobs.
Even the best intentioned SEC, under the the reformed and revitalized Mary Schapiro, can put but a dent in a system so skewed. The case against Goldman's juicy, but juicier to investors are the bank's first quarter returns -- which are up. It'll take more than Ms. Schapiro's lawsuit to topple the applecart of massive accumulation for some and next to nothing for the rest of us.
An “octopus wrapped around the face of humanity” as one journalist put it; the New World Banking Order has arrived. In 2009 speculative, uncontrolled derivatives were the Worlds largest market at an estimated 600 Trillion. The Worlds total economic output was an estimated 58.07 Trillion and the total World bond market was an estimated 82.2 Trillion. Yet, there is no “crime” that the bankers can be charged with as they bankrupt citizens and Nations into the New World Order?
ReplyDeleteThe appropriate criminal charge should be Treason to the American People and our Democratic Republic and Constitution. The members of the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group in government and banking who conspired to overthrow our soverenity as an independent nation, who conspired to bankrupt our Treasury with three unjust Wars and multinational corporate “rolling” bailouts, conspired to control mass media “free Press” propaganda, conspired and manipulated “financial crisis” for their own gain, conspired to “relocate” American industry and technology, conspired to offshore “American Income Tax”, and who have conspired to enslave American citizens with National debt (about $64,000 per citizen) and personal debt. Deserve the death sentence by firing squad for Treason.
Obama, your New World Order is Totalitarian and we Patriots, American free citizens, will fight for our Democracy, Independence and Freedom.