Mystery? SEC Not Effective at Stopping Fraud

FCD Administrator — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:38:55 +0000

By Stephen Labaton (International Herald Tribune) | WASHINGTON: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a once-proud agency with an impressive history as the top cop on Wall Street, finds itself increasingly conducting autopsies of leading financial institutions after failing, in the first instance, to perform adequate biopsies.
The latest black eye for the commission came when it was disclosed that inspectors and agency lawyers had missed a series of warning signs at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. If it had checked out the warnings, the commission might well have discovered years ago that the firm was concealing its losses by using billions of dollars from some investors to pay others. The firm was the subject of several inquiries over the years, including one last year that was closed by the agency’s New York office after it had received a referral of potentially significant problems from the Boston office. Similarly, the SEC chairman, Christopher Cox, assured investors nine months ago that all was well…<<<Read the Full Story>>>.

Britain: joining Euro?

Stephen Anderson — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:40:31 +0000

AFP (BREITBART.COM) | Britain is considering joining the eurozone as a direct consequence of global financial turmoil, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Sunday.

“We are now closer than ever before. I’m not going to break the confidentiality of certain conversations, but some British politicians have already told me: ‘If we had the euro, we would have been better off’,” Barroso told a weekly French news programme, referring to the fall in the pound’s value since markets and liquidity meltdown earlier this year.

“The British have an enormous quality, one of many, that is they are pragmatic,” he said on the panel of a joint RTL-LCI radio and television broadcast. “This crisis has emphasised the importance of the euro, and also of Britain,” he added.

“I don’t mean this will happen tomorrow, I know that the majority (of British people) are still opposed, but there is a period of consideration underway and the people which matter in Britain are currently thinking about it,” the former Portuguese prime minister said.

Barroso pointed to the case of Denmark, another EU state which has so far refused to accept the euro but is now planning another referendum on the single currency. The Danish voted against joining in 2000.>>>>Read the Full Article

FreeCapitalist Daily, by Rick Koerber (Capitalist views on Capitalism)» commission

Mystery? SEC Not Effective at Stopping Fraud

Britain: joining Euro?