One of the biggest items in the news right now is the financial regulation reform bill that is working it’s way through the Senate. The House has already passed it’s version, but the Senate has a much smaller margin of error, given the fact that the Republicans have threatened to filibuster the legislation. I have already discussed some of this, specifically the fallacy that the bill will set up a $50 billion rescue fund for large financial institutions, funded by the American taxpayer. That simply is not true, as I have already pointed out.
In the previous article, I pointed out what I felt was an obvious truth; one of the biggest reasons our financial sector went south in a hand basket was the fact that those who were in charge of regulating the industry failed to do their jobs. That fact is especially highlighted in a report from CNN this morning, a report that gives specific details about what some of the Securities and Exchange Commission employees were doing while the financial sector burned. Here is some of what we know happened.
As the country was sinking into its worst financial crisis in more than 70 years, Security and Exchange Commission employees and contractors cruised porn sites and viewed sexually explicit pictures using government computers, according to an agency report obtained by CNN.
“During the past five years, the SEC OIG (Office of Inspector General) substantiated that 33 SEC employees and or contractors violated Commission rules and policies, as well as the government-wide Standards of Ethical Conduct, by viewing pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images using government computer resources and official time,” said a summary of the investigation by the inspector general’s office.
More than half of the workers made between $99,000 and $223,000. All the cases took place over the past five years.
One of my strongest arguments against the legislation in question is it’s creation of a new regulatory commission, a consumer protection bureau, that is supposed to regulate the very activities that brought our financial sector down. I have contended for a long time that a new agency is not needed, that the current agencies just need to do their jobs. I think it is safe to say that the report from the SEC and it’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) highlights that fact.
Should we make an assumption that any regulatory agency is any better than the people who staff it? I think not. The employees of the SEC were evidently secure in their jobs and in the knowledge that they could get away with pretty much anything they wanted, which included surfing Internet porn sites. They ignored what Bernard Madoff was up to, taking him at his own word that his scheme was legal and they had more important matters to attend to while our financial sector was sinking. Is it any wonder that the financial sector crashed as hard as it did? Much as Nero did while Rome burned, the SEC seems to have fiddled away it’s responsibility to the American people.
