crtune

This continues our public inspection of the processes and procedures of our foremost regulator in the U.S., The Securities Exchange Commission. Now, I'd like to state that I fully thing the mission of the SEC is essential to our economy, but my concern is that SEC is not doing their job, that they are engaged in a variety of misfeasances or simply not doing what they ought to do. The SEC is not trying to take away the court's "contempt" power, but, is engaging in it's typical move to the "easy way out". My experience with financial regulation, is that speed and not quality is the daily expectation for the regulator's staff. Here, also, I believe I see a reluctance to charge legal professionals at BofA with, what appears, at least, to be culpable behavior. Do we see here similarities to Enron? Professions do not have an obligation to allow misbehavior by their fellows. Here, we see the light of day thrown on a very, very standard approach to resolving cases at the financial regulators. They take a difficult case and settle it with the (likely bad-guy) respondent not admitting guilt, and simply instituting some variety of a injunctive order. At NASD, we used to call the most serious of these OPI, (Order of Permanent Injunction). That was because potentially barrable offenses often were treated with OPI in SEC settlements. Also, as the court notes, we see a shell game style trick, where the 33 million fine is actually like a parking fine of one dollar....no one would blink an eye at such a charge. BofA will not need to worry about this individual amount since it will only, at worst, occupy two digit info on its financials (which are denominated in millions). while one political party points at the other for their involvement in regulatory failings, we need to understand that the problem with regulation in the United States is not a lack of total regulatory staff, or shortage of available agencies, nor of laws to fight wrongdoing. The problem with regulation is like most of the problems with government at all levels here: Government is not functioning properly. We no longer have the best and brightest working in governemnt, and when the best do get involved in government they often are shunted away, or are destroyed (I'm thinking of a few very strong folk who have succumbed to scandal or to politics). I do not know how this country will return to service by our finest citizens, whether through growing interest in improving government, or through the change brought on by government collapse. I pray that the United States stays united, and that it learns what our founders intended to be the basis of our country--involvement by citizens and by our most resourceful representatives and leaders. So, a smart NASD-er would know that an OPI was just about as serious as they come and would examine that member or broker with an eye toward likely violations and trickery.