Months before MF Global teetered on the brink, federal regulators were seeking to rein in the types of risky trades that contributed to the firm’s collapse. But they faced opposition from an influential opponent: Jon S. Corzine, the head of the then little-known brokerage firm.Note that Corzine has hired a criminal defense lawyer, which is a pretty good indication that something funky went on.
As a former United States senator and a former governor of New Jersey, as well as the leader of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, Mr. Corzine carried significant weight in the worlds of Washington and Wall Street. While other financial firms employed teams of lobbyists to fight the new regulation, MF Global’s chief executive in meetings over the last year personally pressed regulators to halt their plans.
The government has to stop taking advice from the very crooks who stole billions, if not trillions of dollars from the rest of us.
The government IS "the very crooks who stole billions, if not trillions of dollars from the rest of us."
ReplyDeleteWe are so afraid to vote out "our" crooks, because heaven only knows what kind of crooks will take their place. As if if could be worse (without causing an armed rebellion, that is.)
It's worse than that. Legislators have to make the laws and rely on their staffers to draft them. And the staffers Don't Have A Clue. And they have lobbyists breaking down their doors. So the staffers ask the lobbyists (who are right there) what this obscure thing or statute or whatever means or does, and....
ReplyDeleteI heard an NPR piece on this with actual interviews and it was like hearing a kid get henhouse design tips from a wolverine.
We should be spending as much money on drafting this legislation as is on the other side of the table. Otherwise it's like sending cops with BB guns up against drugs gangs with heavy armament. And it will never happen.