Motley Moose – Archive

A Little History: How We Got Here

The Security & Exchange Commission (SEC)

The Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) was originally setup during the Great Depression to regulate and oversee the investment firms that manipulated the market and helped cause the 1929 crash. The core purpose of the SEC is to keep an eye on the markets to ensure that market manipulation and corporate greed (the constant grasping toward short term profits) would not cause another crash (like the one we’re seeing now).

As CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the nation’s largest investment houses, Henry Paulson (now the Treasury Secretary) was long a fan of “voluntary regulation” where businesses simply monitor their own actions without external oversight. As the Goldman Sachs CEO, Paulson also lobbied the Bush administration for a voluntary commission at the SEC that would allow the largest investment banks (the “big 5”) to oversee themselves. In 2004 they got their wish, and SEC Chair Chris Cox setup their voluntary regulation scheme, allowing the largest investment houses to avoid regulatory oversight.

More after the jump…

Last week was probably the worst week of the campaign for John McCain, and this week seems to be starting off equally rocky. In recent days, McCain has stated that the fundamentals of the economy are strong while the stock market was crashing. He “suspended” his campaign and canceled his debate appearance while purchasing web ads saying he “won” the debate before he announced that he would participate in the debate after all. He canceled an appearance on Letterman, stating he was “on his way to the airport” to race back to DC to help avert economic catastrophe, while he actually went to another nearby CBS building to be interviewed by Katie Couric (he actually did not leave NYC until the following day after giving a morning talk).

Ironically, McCain started this week on ABC’s This Week, and his performance was as erratic as his last week.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA — Even here in McCain’s home state, Obama was the clear winner of the debate. I attended a debate watching party at a restaurant in McCain’s home town. Democrats for America  (DFA) had a private banquet room, while about one hundred restaurant goers watched the debate just outside our door. Throughout the debate, the reactions outside our door were the same as inside our banquet room.

The news about the economic crisis has been coming fast, each headline pushing the last off of the page. Most of the ordinary citizens that I’ve talked to do not understand the economic crisis and feel that the American taxpayers are simply being bamboozled out of their hard earned money – that a transfer of wealth is taking place from the middle class to the wealthiest few.