![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-326654-100x100.png\")
Pssh, lay off Consumerist. They're still the best Division 1 football conference in the nation.
![\"user-pic\"](\"/css/images/default.gif\")
@Traveshamockery: Award winning post. Of course Rutgers and Princeton started the whole thing when the Big Ten was ten fat guys.
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-545239-100x100.png\")
@Traveshamockery: So did I.
\"The Big Ten Conference is the United States' oldest Division I college athletic conference.\"
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-18786-100x100.png\")
Interesting... That is an interesting thought process... I am not as guilty because the SEC should have been looking closer.
Hmmmm....
Does it follow, then, that I am not as guilty for stealing your car because the cops should have been watching it closer?
Sorry 'the Ponz' - yer still scum.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-21984-100x100.png\")
@Clumber: I think that he, himself, could not believe that he kept getting away with his funky program. It is like he expected to be arrested and perp-walked soon after several of the inquiries and ~poof~ nothing ever happened...
@Clumber: I'm not sure he's saying he's less guilty because of their incompetence. I think he's just having fun pointing out how very simple his scheme was and how easy it would've been for someone, anyone, to figure it out. He's playing \"neener neener\" from jail.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-59988-100x100.png\")
@Clumber: Yeah, he's just saying the authorities could have (would have) caught him far earlier if they were looking in the places they were supposed to look.
This could be a good opportunity to get real expert advice on how to spot these early from now on. Get him to spill all his tricks of the trade!
@Nakko & squinko:
Ahhh... as an IT person professionally, I should have spotted the \"neener\" tone without assistance, even on a Monday. In my 1st read I got that he was laying out excuses, \"yeah but...\", and reducing his own culpability. After seeing your posts, I re-read with the neener tone and I agree it makes more sense that way.
I still say get the boiling tar and the feathers....
Just a bunch of hogs feeding from the public trough. No accountability. No work ethic.
@edrebber: Exactly the problem! If these people were held accountable (like the rest of us working stiffs) we wouldn't have these problems! Or at least not nearly so many!
![\"user-pic\"](\"/mt-static/support/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1020806-100x100.png\")
@edrebber:
Would it be bad of me to desire one of them gub'mint jobs becuase it seems like they get paid for sitting on their bums?
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1175017-100x100.png\")
Can I just say mad props on the pic in this article? Had me chuckling for sure
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-115072-100x100.png\")
This is part of the problem. YOUNG INVESTIGATORS. Even someone like me, who's been in accounting for a few years, isn't capable of ferreting out everything. And the government isn't going to pay someone who is smart and experienced enough what they're worth to do it. So the SEC will keep hiring a) people with experience who couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map, let alone fraud, or b)people out of college who may be smart, but don't have the technical experience to find things.
Ideally, part of Mr. Madoff's sentence should be to help train the SEC on how to identify what he did so it doesn't happen again.
@White Speed Receiver: Not only young investigators but lawyers searching for accounting problems...
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-841542-100x100.png\")
I love this biography of Christopher Cox, which is currently still posted on the SEC's website. My favorite part \"During his tenure at the SEC, Chairman Cox made vigorous enforcement of the securities laws the agency's top priority...\"
Really Chris? That was your top priority? Really?
@exploded: NPR had an item about Cox letting an investigator hang out to dry and wither even before Madoff exploded...
@econobiker: I heard that piece (or one very similiar, yay NPR!), and they were really harsh on him, which is entirely justifiable.
The guy who blew the whistle on Madoff years ago basically said the SEC investigators he spoke to were all none-too-bright young lawyers who didn't know the first thing about business or math. He claims they simply didn't understand what he was trying to tell them.
I'm not going to start claiming that Madoff is completely wrong here, but I do believe that at least part (maybe most) of Madoff's incentive for telling the NYT this stuff is to redirect some of the public anger off of him and on to the government instead.
Just keep that in mind when as you digest this story. Beyond that, I agree that the whole thing merits a thorough review of SEC in order to discover ways to improve their efficiency.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-25844-100x100.png\")
@Naame: I don't see what he can gain by redirecting public anger. His company is in receivership, his fortunes are gone. He is in jail, quite likely for the rest of his life. The public would not be able to help him, no matter how forgiving they are.
@humphrmi: I tend to agree, but that doesn't mean he is thinking that. If he is in a position where his lawyers/friends even stand a chance at helping him at all then redirecting public anger will do nothing but help.
Also note that I also said it only part of the potential incentive. The remainder could simply be that he realizes that he no longer has any reason to keep his trap shut about much which I also believe is a big part of it. Either way (or both ways) he has nothing to lose right?
But thank GOD that the S.E.C. got Martha Stewart for what the $50,000 her insider trading on Imclone got her.
Her crime wave might never had ended and the losses could have been incredible...related to wall paper designs or festive holiday table settings and such...
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-169958-100x100.png\")
Am i the only one who read that as \"Inspector Gadget Admits SEC Pretty Much Sucks\"?
The SEC should be abolished.
[mises.org]
It seems that this event will place people into one of two camps. Either people will be disillusioned with the SEC and realize that the only function that it seems to be able to do well is to stand in the way of the free market's self-policing mechanism, or they will come to the erroneous conclusion that there is too little regulation and that the SEC needs more power to protect investors.I fear that the latter will be the majority, but even so, many will come to see that less government is the real way to protect people. Tragically, it is in the nature of government, when its failures are exposed, to claim that if only it had more power it could have performed its duties in the manner it had promised.
I think that's an accurate quote, considering the responses so far.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-387761-100x100.png\")
Yet another example of why Wall Street wanted the political hit job on Elliot Spitzer's career. He was actually doing the SEC's job for them, and doing it well.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-1298494-100x100.png\")
Just another glaring example of government ineptitude. I cannot believe that people want these idiots in charge of our health care.
@leprechaunshawn: Consider this story.
Meet LaKeisha. She is a 20 year old single mother of 4 children who is also addicted to crack. She became addicted to crack at 15 years old and a year later had her first child. Over the next 4 years she had 3 more kids with 3 more \"baby daddy's\". Because of her crack addiction and 4 bastard children she cannot find a job. Now she is pregnant with her fifth child from a fifth father. After all these bad decisions we want to \"reward\" her with free health care.
Meet Brent. He graduated high school at the top of his class. Went on to and graduated from college. At the age of 22 he got his first job in his chosen field. It's a good job too. He makes a strong salary and his health benefits are excellent. He started saving money in college and now has enough to make a down payment on a house. He is now 30 years old with a wife and kid. He has a good job with good benefits and owns a home. After all the good choices he has made we want to tax the hell out of him so that LaKeisha and her 5 children can enjoy health care that she did nothing to deserve.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
@leprechaunshawn: If you think private enterprise can do everything well, why not buy some more stock in GM, or Chrysler, or Lehman Brothers?
Not apologizing for the SEC in this post because I think they really screwed the pooch on this one (and it's too bad that cruel and unusual punishment restriction enable Madoff to breathe) but I don't think private health care is the best run industry in the world either. I seem to remember some press given to HealthSouth and a fellow named Scrushy. It wasn't a warm and fuzzy story.
Rather than leave tens of millions of Americans with no insurance, I think I'm willing to roll the dice.
@leprechaunshawn:
leprechaunshawn
3:26 PM
@ben: I don't want any government agency in charge of life and/or death.
So, you'd rather have a for-profit corporation, whose fiduciary duty is to their shareholders (not to the healthcare consumers) make decisions on life/death.
Smart!
@leprechaunshawn: Health Care aside, would a private company have done much any better?
Realistically you'd probably have the same sort of dead weight driving the company. I mean, as long as the profits are flowing, you don't want to start interfering too much. I suppose the only difference is that the government would probably have had to have bailed out the company once it was discovered how incompetent at their job they were.
@leprechaunshawn:
I just can't wait until you all get your government run health care. Mark my words - This will just be another example of politicians promising \"A\" and delivering \"B\".
@leprechaunshawn:
The basic point that I'm trying to make here is \"pay attention to the news\". Whether its online, in a newspaper or the local news at 10. It seems way to often that we hear about some government agency screwing up at what they are supposed to. Government agencies have proven over and over again that they will use poor judgement and it will be expensive. Why would socialized health care be any different?
@leprechaunshawn: Who wants the SEC in charge of our healthcare?
@Traveshamockery: I bet the majority of the people who are satisfied have medicare which is run of course by said government.
@leprechaunshawn: \"I cannot believe that people want these idiots in charge of our health care.\"
Awesome! Right in the first post! Give this man an award.
@leprechaunshawn: \"Just another glaring example of government ineptitude.\"
I don't see this as ineptitude. The money was flowing and no one wanted to rock the boat. It's more about the fear of sticking your neck out than stupidity.
@leprechaunshawn: Why are you trying to change the topic of the post?
@leprechaunshawn: Yeah, it's sucha shining example of good practice as it stands.
Can someone explain to me why so many Americans are so hostile to socialised medicine? It seems to work well enough in so many countries. The bit I particularly fail to understand is why they never seem to notice that in all cases of which I'm aware private medicine exists in parallel with the state system for those who don't like what's on offer.