Regulation

From the Strib:


WASHINGTON - In a stunning rebuke, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman blames his career regulators for a decade-long failure to investigate Wall Street money manager Bernard L. Madoff, now accused of running one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever.
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He said they never bothered to seek a formal commission-approved investigation that would have forced Madoff to surrender vital information under subpoena. Instead, the staff relied on information voluntarily produced by Madoff and his firm.

Credible and specific allegations regarding Madoff's financial wrongdoing going back to at least 1999 were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, said Cox.
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"I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations or at any point to seek formal authority to pursue them," Cox said in a written statement.
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Cox's statement is sure to fuel a new criticism of the SEC, an agency increasingly seen in Congress and elsewhere as incapable of carrying out its basic mission: to ensure a basic level of honesty on Wall Street.
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Cox himself has come in for strong criticism. [You think?]