SEC Is Not Protecting Us: Madoff

The current attack on the SEC is very startling. Independent fraud investigator, Harry Markopolos had blown the whistle on Madoff in 2000 and the SEC ignored him entirely. He stated that the SEC was afraid of Madoff and that "The SEC is also captive to the industry it regulates and it is afraid of bringing big cases against the largest most powerful firms". How can we have faith in Wall Street when the people who are supposed to protect us are afraid to do their job? Barack Obama has nominated Mary L. Schapiro as chairman of the SEC and his pick for cleaning up the Madoff mess. The problem: she's not the right person for this job. At a time when faith needs to be restored in our financial institutions, Mary Schapiro does little to instill it. Ms. Schaprio presided over the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority—a nongovernmental regulatory agency dominated by industry participants that epitomizes the "self-regulatory" approach., FINRA had conducted its own inspections of Madoff's operations and failed to raise the red flag. This does not sound like the person I want in charge of our SEC.