Another reason why deregulation and lack of oversight is a bad thing. Madoff associates

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
The potential for regulation is infinite because the possible angles of fraud or abuse are infinite. Creative minds will always get around regulation.

Focus on punishment based on a simpler set of laws and government doesn't have to consume society as it's currently doing.

It takes Manpower to detect, gather evidence, convict.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Kinda weird argument Bober is making here with, " Yes, that's exactly what's being said. Nail Madoff and anyone knowingly involved with the fraud to the wall. Any true free market supporters would demand nothing less because if they're honest with themselves, even if living by the oft repeated Caveat Emptor motto, that a fair trade cannot take place without a balance of information by both sides."

A quite self serving circular argument here with a catch 22, the only way to get the information about some individuals like Madoff's gaming the system is through government regulation, yet any free marketeer argues the free market regulates itself, and therefore government regulation is bad.

Then when the free market argument fails big time, somehow we have someone like Bober trying to say we free marketers were right all along????????????

Pardon me me Bober, your argument does not compute. A good smoke screen maybe at best. But all in all, about as substantial as smoke. Punishing Madoff after the fact is not the point, he never should have been allowed to game the system in the first place. And all of Madoffs screams of horror will not feed a single bulldog or compensate a single ripped off investor. Face the facts, the free market laid an egg all over your argument.

Regulations are really nothing but rules.

Why make more rules when you can't enforce the ones you already have?

We have rules against fraud, they just need to be enforced.

The SEC could have done it.

Heck, so could the AG, or any number of state agencies (most states have their own parallel bureaucracies like state AGs, state FBI, state SEC etc).

Madoff violated all kinds of rules covered by any number of agencies (Fed & State).

Fix the agencies we have before running off and creating new ones. If these agencies need more 'teeth' consider it and give it to them if appropriate. I listened to the SEC getting grilled by Congress and don't remember hearing them argue about not having enough teeth to deal with the problem. Sounded to me more like a case of 'asleep at the wheel'.

I also think it pertinent to note how many people were involved in this, and that multiple safeguards failed. Sounds like a number o fpeople were complicit in perpetrating fraud, a number of employees were in collusion, and the CPA/Audit firm dropped the ball too.

Much to fix before marching off to write a new set of rules and washing hands of it proclaiming 'problem fixed'. And by 'fix' I mean convictions of those who colluded, suits and other sanctions against the accounting firm and swift kick to the buttocks of SEC people.

Fern

 

[artikk]

I don't think there shouldn't be anymore rules, the SEC just got overly complacent and the rest lies in the present time.

 

[trenchfoot]

Oh yeah, and Bush and Cheney with their "deregulate is good ideology" of the right, and the regulators they silenced and controlled with choke chains and the culture of big business homesteading on K Street dictating favorable terms for themselves from INSIDE the White House itself had absolutely nothing to do with the ruinous and still declining financial condition we now find ourselves in.

Yeah surrrrrrrre. Geeez. How easily this stuff gets ignored, pooh-poohed and drowned out with screams of "Socialists!" and "Communists" and stuff like "You're going to ruin what we ALREADY ruined!" and "It was all like this WAYYYY before Bush took over!"

LOL. It'd be even so much funnier if it weren't so tragic.

 

[Lemon law]

Now Bober tries. "The government was warned by private investors, people working in the free market, that they didn't trust Madoff's scheme.

The government chose to do nothing. "

The point being, GWB&co was not a typical or rational government and simply refused to even check Madoff after being warned. So never equate an anomaly like GWB&co with government.

Quality routine regulation would have made sure that Madoff could not pull the stunt and no requests would have been necessary. Stopping not only Madoff but others that tried similar stunts. Nor does quality regulation have to be intrusive or burdensome, or expensive.