Powerful Firm Becomes Second Home for Financial Regulators →
Promontory Financial Group, a consulting firm, has become so powerful in the financial regulatory world that is advises both the government on how to write regulations and banks on how to comply with them. Part of their dominance is because nearly two-thirds of the company’s senior executives came from financial regulatory agencies.
Big Businesses Offer Revolving Door Rewards →
Major corporations make it financially advantageous for executives to take government jobs, according to regulatory filings reviewed by the Project On Government Oversight. Through their compensation policies, companies may be fueling the revolving door and making it easier for their alumni to gain influence over public policy.
See what companies offer what rewards in the full story.
Why Congress Should Be Wary of Mary Jo White →
POGO’s financial investigator Michael Smallberg wants you to know a couple facts about Mary Jo White before her confirmation hearing tomorrow for head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The nomination may give the appearance that the president is hiring a tough cop to police Wall Street. But White doesn’t have an especially remarkable record of prosecuting Wall Street, and she has almost no record as a regulator, making it hard to predict what kind of rules she would craft for corporations in general or the financial industry in particular.
Moreover, she has spent the past decade as an attorney at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, where she defended clients before the government in white-collar cases.
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the SEC in 1934 and, to the surprise of many, appointed Joseph Kennedy—a reputed bootlegger and stock speculator—to be its first chairman. On that day, the revolving door began to spin. Asked why he would appoint someone many considered to be a crook to head the SEC as its first chairman, FDR is said to have replied: ‘It takes one to catch one.’ So began the debate about the revolving door.”
How Former Government Regulators Keep Banks Too Big To Fail
If you aren’t ready to dive into the 59 pages and 274 footnotes of our recent report on the revolving door at the Securities and Exchange Commission, you can watch the 2 minute version below from The Huffington Post.
A study of thousands of government records shows a pervasive culture at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the government’s top financial regulatory agency, of former SEC employees leaving the agency to go work at major banks. Former SEC employees have helped major firms secure exceptions from federal law, fight allegations of wrongdoing, and soften the blow of enforcement actions.
“The revolving door between the SEC and the firms it oversees is so pervasive that it threatens the integrity of our regulatory system,” said Michael Smallberg, the author of POGO’s new report.
Check out the full report to see just how bad it has gotten.
“If you get caught with your hand in the till you go to jail, but if you’re a big bank and you’re caught breaking the law it seems that all that happens is you’re fined and told you’ll go to jail if you do it again.”
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)
Government crackdown on money laundering to cost banks billions →
Hard to feel bad for the banks who will finally pay for years of money laundering for drug traffickers, terrorists and sanctioned countries. Isn’t it nice when regulators actually regulate?
JPMorgan Trading Loss May Reach $9 Billion →
First it was $2 billion. Then it was $5 billion.
