We can dither about California politics all we want here, but Wall Street is imploding on the watch of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox (pictured right, Cox was a long-time Californai Congressman before being appointed to his SEC post by President Bush in 2006), and he needs to be fired or resign immediately. There are many components feeding the crisis in banking and equity markets, but the SEC has failed in its oversite responsiblities under Cox.
The "regulations" set to go into effect tomorrow are merely enforcement actions of laws on the books already. Christopher Cox needs to exit the stage – now. His lack of proactive leadership has cost Americans trillions of dollars of net worth already.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
It’s amazing. Chris Cox was a good guy in the Congress. What happened to him?
September 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Washington.
September 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Unfortunately, Yes, Christopher Cox needs to pack his bags, clean his desk and go his home in Orange County.
Something for others to learn this lesson:
Once you are at the helm of an agency/department/commission, use the bully pulpit of your job and do it right from the start. There is no need to keep the seat warm and reply to a crisis. Prevent a crisis by being proactive.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:00 am
Not to defend Cox, or the SEC either, but don’t exaggerate. Nobody has lost “trillions” of “net worth.”
The whole point of the government actions has been to guarantee bonds and other debt, and to fund insurance policies that would in turn stabilize the other firms depending on that coverage. In other words, to preserve the worth and stability of all those assets.
The only “loss” (which is only a temporary paper loss at this point, even though the credit crisis for these firms was very real) was for the shareholders of Bear, Lehman, Merrill and FNMA & FDMC.
In the case of the first 3, the SEC’s job isn’t to keep them in business. Especially when they make bad bets with highly leveraged capital.
In the case of FNMA & FDMC, those shareholders enjoyed inflated profits from the “implied” government guarantee, even while the likes of Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines looted the business and doctored the financials, and Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Joe Biden, and even (in his brief little Senate career so far) Barack Obama made sure that by law the SEC and any other agency except the laughably understaffed OFHEO was not permitted to lay a glove on them, let alone review their books.