Financial Reform ?

Is this some kind of a joke the same person who single handily profited from the global financial crisis is the author of the current financial reform bill? Chris Dodd has no business being in government let along regulating the industry which he profited from all of its wrong doings .

What I also find peculiar is that the industry being regulated is so accepting of this this regulation ? Remember these are the same people who watched porn instead of Bernie Maddoff. Is it simply because Wall Street has heaped millions of dollars in support of Obama and his drive to merge corporate and government interests? Or because Obama has taped so many Goldman Sacks alumni to mastermind his big government takeover of your life.

This whole financial reform bill stinks to high heaven and with all the usual suspects lining up in support of this legislation its no wonder most folks are eyeing the November congressional elections instead of focusing on the day to day operation of the US Government.

Wonder why they missed the financial crisis? Or Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme? A government report obtained by ABC News reveals that SEC employees were focused on something else: porn.

Glodal financial crisis goes on while SEC watched Porn

SEC watching porn instead of financial industry

By Husna Haq, /Correspondent / April 23, 2010

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2010/0423/SEC-watching-porn-instead-of-financial-industry

Just when it was beginning to repair its reputation with its high-profile case against Goldman Sachs, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suffers another major blow: Senior staffers there were surfing Internet pornography – as much as eight hours per day, in one case – when they were supposed to be policing the financial industry.

Perhaps this helps explain why the SEC didn't see the financial collapse coming. Or did nothing to stop Lehman Bros.’ questionable accounting tactics. Or Bernie Madoff’s dubious “investing” strategy."

They were busy with other things.

The information comes by way of a disturbing SEC memo to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R), who requested that the agency’s internal watchdog conduct an investigation. ABC News broke the story on its Thursday evening newscast.

The investigation found 31 serious offenders over the past two-and-a-half years, 17 of whom were senior SEC officers with salaries ranging from $100,000 to $222,000 per year.

The AP reports these highlights –

• A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

• An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet, he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense and received a 14-day suspension.

• Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R) of California, called the scandal “nothing short of disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at pornography than taking action to help stave off the events that brought our nation’s economy to the brink of collapse.”

But, as the Washington Post reports, it’s not the first time government workers have been caught accessing pornography on the job. Employees at the National Science Foundation, the National Park Service, and even a chief judge of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have been caught looking at pornography or posting sexually explicit content on personal websites.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/2010/0423/SEC-watching-porn-instead-of-financial-industry

There is something about FINRA

There is something about FINRA;seems the same people who failed ot protect the public didn't know Bernie Maddoff was crook,or some would say failed to act when everyone knew Bernie Maddoff was a crook ,the very same people who through their policies of no money down easy credit created a global melt down are now claiming to give "unbiased stock advice" on their website? Am I the only one that see the irony in this?

As my grandmother used to say ." I would never buy a used car from that guy" and although I may let my daughter date a Rolling Stone ,I would never take stock advice from an administration that has failed in every single policy initiative it has mistakenly put forth.

Seriously folks getting the IRS to do your taxes seems a far less risk ,than listening to a government agency about something so complex like investing. After all the IRS is billed as the most efficient tax collection agency in the world ! While the SEC is on the cusp of being folded into a super regulatory agency and if anything has completely failed in its mission of protecting the investor class.

TGIF ,Obama Bear Market ,and a little CYA for Bernie Maddoff

Surprise surprise ,rumors spread of a Maddoff Deal nothing like a little CYA on a Friday afternoon .

Unemployment hits a 25 year high ,while wall street has finally begone calling the current market sell down the Obama Bear market . Not for nothing but dispute his over whelming support during the campaign from Wall Street ,street patients is about as long as the average fruit fly . You don't perform they turn on you very quickly. and very aggressively . The ridiculously high expectations created by the image machine in the mainstream media coupled with a pretty benign competitor in the general election looks like its already backfiring.

Lets face it,you expect it from RUSH ,but out burst from wimps on CNBC like Kerry loving Crammer or even to a lesser degree Rick Santelli seem to spell doom for this already floundering some say failed administration.

Connections, political donations and cocktail parties

So yes I have sold my practice, retired and a lot of you have voiced concern about weather I will continue with this blog. The answer is a resounding yes and I am going to start with a little story about Bernie Maddoff. As you know I have for most of this decade warned many of you that these financial wrong doings are never the solitary acts that the media and the industry want you to think they are. What we have with the Bernie Maddoff scandal is another example of how the rules that the rest of us go by don’t seem to apply to certain people. Connections, political donations and cocktail parties as for most of this decade seem to out way professionalism and ethics. Wall Street in recent years has become a business where the customer’s money has become the firm’s money to do with as they see fit. Don’t blame your local broker he or she is subject to the most stringent rules and requirements imangable but understand that people like Bernie operate outside those legal requirements that you and I are often subject too.

I only know what I read but misgiving about Mr. Maddoff surfaced as far back as the 1970's and a fairly large amount of suspicsion has been build up that last 12 years! Yes that’s right heavy dought has been cast more than once in the last 12 years . Now Mr. Maddoff made off to a tune of 50 billion yes that’s BILLION , about double what the auto industry was bailed out for. Seems his operation didn’t pass the small test more than once, yet when notified the regulators sat on there hands or seemed unwilling to take on the challenge.

So here I will interject some of my own personal musings and many of you who know me personally will find this somewhat ironic. As it became clearer and clearer that I needed a change I began to shop around for a new clearing and compliance arrangement. One firm that shall remain nameless seemed like a pretty good fit to me but upon discussion they seem to have problem, not with this blog but with my other blog,"the Ridgewood blog”. A blog in which soccer moms and dads argue as to the nuances of turf fields, math programs and the finer points of pedestrian etiquette while crossing the local streets. The very day the Madoff story broke and it became know that the likes of Eli Wisel, Yeshiva University and NYU had all fallen prey to this scoundrel to the combined tune of say 80 million .I was being blown off by a firm that was worried about negative fall out from the Ridgewood blog? And that my friends was the as they say the straw that broke the camels back and told me once and for all it was time to step aside and search for new ventures.

The moral to the story is that it appears that the regulators and the industry have consistently protected themselves and defend their unaccountability at the detriment to the investor class, while the investor is left with these words to the wise "if your over 18 everything I say to you could be a lie ".

and yes there will be a lot more to say on this subject for the next couple of weeks while the biggest scandal in US financial history unfolds.