Mystery? SEC Not Effective at Stopping Fraud

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>>>.

Bailout marks Marx’s comback

by Martin Masse – National Post | Marx’s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout

In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the “centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him.
Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal Read more