If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
It must've been like old home week when the old gang of Wall Street and Washington insiders finalized a couple more cushy settlements last week. But there was an empty chair at the negotiating table. That chair belongs to you, and it belongs to me.
She now has an opportunity to show that she also has the strength of character to lead this often-fractious agency in these difficult and challenging times. Nothing less than the safety and integrity of our capital markets depend on the choices she makes.
Equity crowdfunding (or crowdfund investing) is not operational and not legitimate in the United States yet and for those who are growing comfortable with the concept, there are three essential facts to remember.
The agency says that the update to Hastings' 200,000+ subscribers where he said "members had enjoyed over 1 billion hours in June" violated the SEC Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) rule.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) received 3,001 tips to its new Whistleblower Office during fiscal 2012 (starting in October 2011). This undoubtably begs the question: How can we put that number into context?
Any manager remotely associated with the demise of the nation's largest bank might seem an unlikely choice to head the SEC. Yet Sallie Krawcheck, the woman who served as CFO of Citigroup in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash, is now on a short list of candidates.
Though the SEC's responsibilities have grown considerably, its enforcement budget -- relative to total managed investment assets in the market -- has fallen by nearly 50 percent since 2005.
Mary Schapiro's legacy as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission will be that the agency did not become entirely useless on her watch -- although that is maybe the best you can say about it.
The credit-rating agencies are like a miserable long-term relationship: You desperately want to end it, but can't imagine life without it.
Computers owned by the SEC Trading and Markets division were brought by SEC staffers to a hacker convention. They contained unencrypted, step-by-step instructions to shut down our financial trading system. Essentially: A Hacker's Guide to our Financial Universe.
What did the SEC do when it realized the danger to other investors from high-speed trading? Did it warn the American people? Order high speed trading to cease? Ban algorithms designed to cheat other investors? Absolutely not!
Having the Securities and Exchange Commission police high-speed trading is like pitting Barney Fife against Michael Corleone: The odds are not in its favor.
Today the SEC stands at a crossroads. The decisions it makes, and the decisions that are made for it by Congress, will determine whether the agency can reemerge as a credible investor watchdog or whether it will be permanently relegated to industry lap dog status.
For the SEC to do its job properly, it needs adequate resources, and for that it needs the support of Congress. To understand why the budgetary issue is so important, and why the SEC deserves more funding, let's look at the trajectory of the Commission since the Madoff scandal.
Remember the final phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of America - "...justice for all"? Let the SEC go after businessmen, bankers, CEOs, CIOs, and others in positions of responsibility when fraud is uncovered at their organizations -- regardless of what they claim their "intentions" were.
Dodd-Frank is a lazy man's spray-gun approach at financial reform. There is simply a total lack of critical changes needed to fix the regulatory spinal cord of the financial markets -- and it's either the blind ignorance of systemic risk or an agenda as dark as you could imagine.
