After another Election Day filled with mostly unsubstantiated Republican claims of vast left-wing (read: non-white) voter fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission is jumping on the GOP bandwagon.
The Republicans have learned to blame poor electoral showings–or, apparently, even strong ones such as yesterday’s–on a vast army of illegal immigrants, dead people and welfare queens stuffing the ballot box at the behest of the ghouls at ACORN. For its part, the SEC is taking aim at the evil hedge funds and other speculators that trade those wicked derivatives.
SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, who yesterday sought to put that whole Bernie Madoff thing behind her agency by hiring someone who might actually be able to spot fraud, is turning her attention to proxy contests. While she wants to make it easier for investors to get their director nominees on a company’s ballot, she also wants to make sure there’s no “early and often” shenanigans.
Mary Schapiro: Patron Saint Of Lost Causes
For a brief instant in the post-Markopolos period their was a flash of brilliance: Totally gut the SEC and use the occasion to develop a new regulator without the ass-backwardsness that has become the Commission’s hallmark. It is a useless regulator with little or no redeeming qualities except perhaps as a refuge for failed bankers, stockbrokers and attorneys- such that they could be kept busy and away from other mischief (a quick look at Congress will remind you that there is nothing more dangerous than a bunch of idle attorneys and finance types with no meaningful work and unlimited access to visual aides). That fleeting flash of brilliance, however, has faded. Now, the answer appears to be to throw cash at the SEC and hope a tall pile of bills buries whatever smoking memos of other Ponzi schemes and frauds may otherwise have been discovered.
President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget request would give federal securities and commodities regulators additional resources to investigate fraud and manipulation in the financial markets.
According to budget figures released by the Obama administration Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission could see its budget go up by about 6.8% to $1.027 billion from an estimated $961 million budget obligation for fiscal year 2009. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, meanwhile, would see its budget go up by about 8.8%, to about $161 million from an estimated $148 million budget obligation in fiscal year 2009.
The SEC would use some of the budget increases to invest in technologies for the enforcement division that are “similar to those used by the law firms it faces during investigations and litigation.”
Obviously, we can look forward to more PTA-like “Meet Your Regulator” pieces in the Wall Street Journal, owing to an expanded public relations budget.
SEC, CFTC Would Get More Enforcement Resources [The Wall Street Journal]
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