SEC chairman proud of his response to crisis

Robbien

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Wed Dec-24-08 09:12 AM
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SEC chairman proud of his response to crisis

Source: Reuters

Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said he takes price in his response to the U.S. financial crisis in an interview with the Washington Post published Wednesday.

Cox said that what the SEC had done was to "stay calm, which as been our greatest contribution-- not being impulsive, not changing the rules willy-nilly, but going through a very professional and orderly process that takes into account unintended consequences and gives ample notice to market participants."

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUKN2425552020081224

During Cox's time as chairman, every investment bank under the SEC's authority either collapsed, was forced to sell itself to another bank as part of a rescue or was driven by market turmoil into another business.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/23/AR2008122302765.html

"The people doing the examinations have no clue what the right questions are to ask.
http://ftadviser.com/FTAdviser/Investments/News/article/20081224/c50ef4a4-d1b9-11dd-ad95-00144f2af8e8/Inadequate-training-at-SEC-blamed-for-Madoff-scandal.jsp

First, let's decide which is worse: personal trading while working at the SEC or surfing for porn. Let's start with porn. Now it wasn't just "accidentally" clicking on a Web site that was sent via email. This was a calculated effort to bypass the filters on blocked Web sites after getting numerous denials, according to the April-through-September report. There's more than one way to peel an onion. Maybe if the SEC used those smarts to track down fraud instead of sexually explicit material, it would be more effective. Even after the Office of Inspector General recommended that management take disciplinary action, some employees had gone unpunished as late as September 2008.

Some staff members violated commission rules governing employee securities transactions. Obviously when you are trading your own account it's hard to find time to regulate other people's trading.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10454771/2/sec-do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do.html

Then there's the photography business that was run with government resources -- confirming that government work doesn't pay well. Luckily it wasn't sexual photographs; wedding portraits, maybe? The employee was only suspended for two weeks after using agency email, Internet phones and printers for several years to run this business. Either SEC employees are really good at covering their tracks, or their bosses are clueless.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10454771/2/sec-do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do.html

PBS news last night said that Cox and the SEC refers to banks as clients of the SEC. Shareholders are not the client, banking institutions call the shots as SEC clients.

And yet Cox is still very happy with his department's and his standard response to this crisis: Stay calm and do nothing.