Imagine you are the financial services regulator for a really big, rich country. The biggest and richest, even. Now, you are really bad at catching fraud. I mean really, really bad. You can’t even do it when a guy is stealing literally billions of dollars and you’re looking right at it; you’re no good at seeing it even when people tell you where to look. It’s just not your strength, which wouldn’t be a big deal, except that you are the financial services regulator for a really big, rich country.
How to rectify the situation? Hire a guy who’s spent a good chunk of his career telling the bad guys how to break the law without you ever being the wiser!
We kid Norm Champ, the new head of inspections at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s New York office. You know, the one that had Bernie Madoff running a $67 billion Ponzi scheme under its nose for 30 years without ever suspecting anything? We are sure that Norm is a good guy and has never done anything that would get him disbarred. Though wouldn’t that make the whole sorry SEC story just that much more fun?
The guy who clued the SEC in on Madoff’s malfeasance 10 years before Madoff turned himself in and saved the regulator the trouble of catching him made all sorts of recommendations after he became a Capitol Hill hero. Like moving SEC headquarters to Connecticut and hiring people who actually know something about the firms they are supposed to be watching. Well, check on the last one. That’ll show that Markopolous guy.
But why would a guy who has been cashing a big fat paycheck from $5 billion hedge fund Chilton Investment Co. for 10 years agree to work a thankless job for a civil servant’s salary? We cannot say. But be warned, mini-Madoffs: There is now a slightly better than 0% chance you won’t get away with it.
Norm Champ Named Associate Regional Director for Examinations in SEC New York Regional Office [SEC]
Posted by Investorcluzo , Nov 04, 2009 12:16PM
nice tags, but the post is a little wordy...yet, it's still better than greggums.
f1rst b1tches!
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:19PM
political aspirations..
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:21PM
SHAZZY GASPARINI
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:23PM
Navin R. Johnson, SEC trainee: [bleakly] "I've already given away eight pencils, two hoola dolls, and an ashtray, and I've only taken in fifteen dollars."
Frosty, Former Hedge Fund Manager, now SEC employee and SEC hedge fund auditor trainer: "Navin, you have taken in fifteen dollars and given away fifty cents worth of crap, which gives us a net profit of fourteen dollars and fifty cents.
Navin R. Johnson, SEC trainee: "Ah... It's a profit deal!! Takes the pressure off. Get your weight guessed right here! Only a buck! Actual live weight guessing! Take a chance and win some crap!"
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:24PM
Joe Kennedy is the new killing it.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:25PM
Greg
I'm going to send Valentines to all of your ex-girlfriends. The good ones will assume you've gone downhill, but the clingy ones will try to get in touch with you. You'll be surprised at how persistent they can be.
Not Jeff Macke but a fan of his work
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:26PM
I like this better than Greg's product. More thought to it, good DB-style twist (barn doors, etc.), and I think that this the most we can hope for in his case for now. People will not start tipping him instead of Bess right away, which means that she'll always be the torchbearer of DB.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:30PM
Please have someone translate this post into comprehensible English. I kid Greg Michaels.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:30PM
@ 7 youse got dat right. i give dat honey Bess my tip every night-
cg
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 12:49PM
Jon-
Fantabulous news on the boffo gig. You're living your dream
On the way home would you be a doll and remember to pick up a tube of Mandelay and an enema pack at Duane Reade? I'm meeting a freind from Craigslist at 8.
Love,
Dad
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:06PM
Norm Champ? If that's the same fucker that used play drums for the D. Lights, he can't do a roll to save his ass.
Posted by Joe Mac , Nov 04, 2009 1:07PM
Is MCC saying she hits the chronic? Spokesperson for Big Daddy Cayne?
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:08PM
Still not liking many non-Bess posts. it's just as well I've got to work sometime.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:11PM
Nice post, Shazbot
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:13PM
@11
and who are you, motherfucker, Ringo Starr?
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:14PM
If there were no naked derivatives, there would probably be very few hedge funds.
With the appointment of hedge-fund counsel Norm "The Thinker" Champ to SEC's NY Exam Group, and with Mary Schapiro and Larry Sommers still in Washington, everyone should be confident that derivatives and dark pools will experience no meaningful reform of any kind, anytime soon.
Hedge funds will proliferate, derivatives & dark pools will expand and get deeper, salaries and bonuses will escalate, and the next bubble will move closer to Main Street.
Goldman Sachs and Jesus! WTF?
The Guy from Delaware
Posted by american bandersnatch , Nov 04, 2009 1:21PM
@16 - Good idea TGFD. The world would be a better place with almost no swaps, forwards, options, puts and calls. We should have government personnel that would approve someone's need for such a security (kinda like a doctor writing a prescription). Although, to make it work we'd need the border patrol to search people for illegal bearer derivatives as they come into the country.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:23PM
@16 -
You think so? I've got to get back in and gets mine before everything goes to shit again.
Yeeeeee-HaaaaaaaW!
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:24PM
@17 -
Please see my erudite post from yesterday with regard to my proposals to eliminate all risk.
-Mark Klein, MD
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:25PM
Less OTC derivatives and more exchange traded ones would be good start.
Posted by Anal_yst , Nov 04, 2009 1:29PM
@20
Except some businesses, by necessity, are better suited to OTC derivatives. You can't totally eliminate them, no matter how hard you try, because the demand is built-in.
Posted by NakedShort , Nov 04, 2009 1:31PM
The US Government should just force every citizen, corporation, ect to purchase and own only United States Treasury Bonds. Solves the risk problem, solves the deficit problem. BOOM.DONE.
To kind of piggy back on my own idea they could also make Wall Street firms pay bonuses exclusively in 30 year Treasury Bonds.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:31PM
@21. That's not true. It's just a matter of cost, really.
Posted by american bandersnatch , Nov 04, 2009 1:39PM
@Naked - If your're going to steal Christina Kirchner's ideas, you should at least give her credit.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:41PM
Has there been any official communication regarding the status of Gregory? Silence speaks volumes? I really need to know. TIA
-- Greg's baby daddy
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 1:47PM
@20
Companies would prefer them too. Most people would much rather deal with the risk of an exchange failing than whatever firm they are teaming up with, much less have to offset every contract with CDS on their counterparties. The problem is that many of the OTC derivatives can't be standardized to the degree that would make an exchange liquid enough to be useful.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 2:11PM
TGFD said "Naked" derivatives in my #16 post. WTF is wrong with that?
AB@#17...Your sarcasm is misapplied. Naked CDSs are what f*cked-up AIG. Tell TGFD it didn't. Go ahead.
The Guy from Delaware
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 2:23PM
@19
I read that delusional horseshit you posted the other day. Hilarious, man.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 2:25PM
@26. By liquid you ultimately mean cheap enough.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 2:35PM
@26 / 29, etc
No, the problem with putting a CDS on an exchange is that it has a binary payout. How do you margin that? Will you ask the writer to post 100% of face value on a GM CDS?
No? Then, you're asking for trouble.
But, that does not preclude central clearing of a lot of OTC derivatives. That may have prevented AIG's wank-rific failure.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 2:46PM
@30 - 3.75 bonus points for "wank-rific."
-The Guy Who Arbitrarily Gives Bonus Points For Stuff That Makes Him Snarff Diet Coke out of His Nose.
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 3:59PM
Makes for nice snark, but hiring the guy who tells the bad ones how to fly under the radar is exactly what a regulator should do because he knows all the tricks, just like when you get busted for that white powdery stuff (he told me it was baking soda!) you want the meanest SOB ex-prosecutor defending your sorry ass ...
Posted by guest , Nov 04, 2009 5:51PM
@29
Not cheaper, no exchange wants to take a risk if there are only a few active players in any given security. If the securities are too specialized they end up way overexposed to one counterparty failing.
@ 30 is right for CDS of course. The only way a CDS exchange would even have a chance is if contracts post full or near full collateral and make them fairly short duration.