TMP has presented a terrible, yet not surprising, description of the enforcement arm of the SEC. Based on this detailed description of this dyfunctional enforcement arm, no wonder securities fraud has been running rampant.
Oh, and on a related note, Huffpo reports that:
The inspector general tasked with overseeing and auditing the Federal Reserve knows pretty much nothing about what the Fed is doing. . . . She did not know where the Fed has invested its $2 trillion on the liability side of the balance sheet. "I do not know. We have not looked at that specific area at this particular point on," she said.
The NYT today published an obituary for a deceased American fighter pilot who was captured by the Chinese:
Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American Flier Tortured in a Chinese Prison, Dies at 83...
From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer — then an Air Force captain — was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air. [...] Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.
So - when the Chinese do it it's torture. When the US do it it's "harsh interrogation".
We expect more consistency of our major news organizations. We expect more of our own government.
It's time to call for a special prosecutor, Mr. Attorney General.
[via Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan]
I'd forgotten how refreshingly loud British government debates could be. Prime Minister's Question Time is a classic opportunity for any MP to question and challenge the Prime Minister directly. I wonder how the US congress or senate would handle such a debate. If CSpan was this much fun, it would be prime time TV.
[viaAndrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish]
In an article titled "The Born Prophecy," published in the May, 2009 American Bar Association Journal, Richard Schmitt writes about a 1996 conversation between Brooksley E. Born (shortly after she was named to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The influential Greenspan was an ardent proponent of unfettered markets. Born was a powerful Washington, DC lawyer with a track record for activist causes. Over lunch in his private dining room at the stately headquarters of the Fed in Washington, Greenspan probed their differences.
Well, Brooksley, I guess you and I will never agree about fraud," Born, in a recent interview, remembers Greenspan saying.
"What is there not to agree on?" Born says she replied.
"Well, you probably will always believe that there should be laws against fraud, and I don't think there is any need for a law against fraud," she recalls him saying. Greenspan, Born says, believed the market would take care of itself.
Further down in this same article Schmidt notes that, according to Greenspan, Born has mischaracterized the conversation and that the alleged conversation is "wholly at variance with my decades-long-held view."
Actions speak louder than words, of course, proving that Greenspan is largely responsible for ruining the economy of the United States, and that he is lying to attempt to deny a conversation that is wholly consistent with his lack of interest in regulating financial institutions during his tenure at the Fed.
Eliot Spitzer, recently appearing with Arianna Huffington on CNBC, makes one strong point after another. Stress test the banks now, he asks? Shouldn't they have been monitoring the banks all along? It's as if a doctor who, after ten years under your care, and after you've suffered a heart attack, finally decides to take a blood test. What the hell has he been doing for ten years, given that he wasn't doing anything meaningful to monitor your health.
According to Spitzer (see the ten-minute video here), Greenspan's approach was absolutely destructive to the life savings of middle class tax payers, who are now in the process of subsidizing the big banks "who are burning our money." He points out that not one CEO of a bank has been removed. To the extent that some of the banks look OK at the moment, it's only because the federal government recently handed them a trillion dollars; "the Fed is sliding the money to the banks" through a "flim-flam game." That's the money they are burning through. He sees more financial crises to come, because we haven't made any significant changes to the system. "We have leveraged the future of our kids." He seriously doubts that the bank "stress tests" are real. Rather, he suspects that they are based on fantasy numbers relating to jobs and debt. He further points out that the Fed is run by the CEO's of the very banks that got us into trouble.
Spitzer refers listeners to an article he recently wrote for Slate. The questions focus on whether we should trust the Fed, especially the New York Fed:
Given the power of the N.Y. Fed, it is time to ask some very hard questions about its recent performance. The first question to ask is: Who is the New York Fed? Who exactly has been running the show? Yes, we all know that Tim Geithner was the president and CEO of the N.Y. Fed from 2003 until his ascension as treasury secretary. But who chose him for that position, and to whom did he report? The N.Y. Fed president reports to, and is chosen by, the Fed board of directors.
Huffington points out that the money we're dealing with now is taxpayer money and that it makes the Enron problem look minuscule.
Economist Robert Shiller (see the separate video) also suggest that the stress tests are not really about objective data, but they are about "animal spirits." They are attempts to make the American investors feel confident.
Today is the National Day of Prayer in a nation that allegedly treasures the separation of church and state.
This incongruence motivated a lawsuit by Freedom From Religion Foundation. The federal suit was filed while the Bush Administration was in power, but it continues to be pursued today.
Here's the problem in a nutshell:
"Exhortations to pray in official Presidential proclamations do not constitute ceremonial deism solemnizing some other occasion," the Foundation asserts, but "constitute an end in itself intended to promote and endorse religion."
In an article posted today, FFRF explains further:
"Prayer proclamations not only violate the separation between church and state, but offend reality, by suggesting we can suspend of the natural laws of the universe through wishful thinking," notes Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.
The Foundation and the freethought movement have long suggested a National Day of Reason.
"Congress ought to repeal this law and substitute a National Day of Service," Gaylor added. "That would be constitutional and, equally important, it would be useful! Prayer is a cop-out. If humans want to improve the world, we need to take action, not slavishly beg a supernatural power to do our work for us."
Freethinkers believe in deeds, not creeds, said Barker. Noted 19th century freethinker/attorney Robert Green Ingersoll famously wrote: "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray."
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