Comments on: SEC Charges Ex-Countrywide CEO With Fraud

Angelo Mozilo, Former Head Of Major Player In Subprime Mortgage Market, Also Accused Of Insider Trading

[alphaa10]

SEC UNDER BUSH WAS ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH

bothR2blame31 said, "The SEC is the swindlers and banksters and fraudsters... They're the same ones who gave Madoff a free pass for 11 years."
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Not exactly. A free pass for Madoff during the Bush term, certainly. In fact, SEC enforcement under Bush (and Chris Cox, in particular) became something of a joke.

Even John McCain, a noted booster of GOP DEregulation policy on Wall Street, said if he were president he would fire Cox for turning Wall Street into a "casino".


Clinton Had No Responsibility for Madoff--

The final two years of the Clinton term is a different situation altogether.

The problem at that time was definitely not SEC enforcement under Levitt, but the House Energy and Commerce Committee which funds the SEC-- then under Chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin (R, LA).

Yes, it was Rep. Billy Tauzin (R, LA) who told SEC chairman Levitt he would need new fiscal underpinnings if he intended to walk Wall Street as regulator.

Levitt took that as a threat, especially since the GOP ran the US House at the time, and Tauzin signed off on SEC funding. In all likelihood, that was the threat Tauzin intended.

Drink your fill of the reference below, which shows what actually happened-- and now you can blame the GOP doctrine of DEregulation.

http://www.singerpubs.com/ethikos/html/levitt.html

(Quotation from the above link--)
Says Levitt, "In the spring and summer of 2000, when our auditor independence rules were being hotly debated, Tauzin [Billy Tauzin, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee] was relentless. He sent three separate letters warning the SEC to back down. One five page letter demanded the answers to sixteen questions on such matters as the SEC?s statutory authority to issue the rules, the empirical evidence that rules were necessary, and whether SEC employees were subject to the same stock-owning restrictions as accountants."


Bush Did Have Responsibility for Madoff--

The failure of Bush to investigate Madoff during the eight years of the Bush watch has nothing to do with Clinton, but everything to do with the GOP policy of DEregulation for Wall Street.

Despite what some have suggested, neither Clinton nor Levitt of the SEC had created a double-jeopardy threat to Madoff, because they never accused, indicted or even investigated Madoff. Under Clinton, Madoff was not investigated, thanks to the war between Levitt and Tauzin-- much less tried and acquitted on ANY set of facts.

This left Madoff wide open for investigation and prosecution when Tauzin's GOP ally, George W. Bush, entered office the next year.

Yet, predictably enough, that investigation never happened. Bush managed for eight, long years to ignore Madoff. During the five years preceding SEC chairman Cox and in the three years afterward, there was no SEC investigation of Madoff under Bush because the GOP-- and Tauzin, in particular-- opposed regulation of Wall Street.

[ibsteve2u]

But...but...but....ALL American businessmen are as pure as the driven snow - that is why they become Republicans and go on to be Presidents, vice-President, Secretaries of the Treasury, and on and on!!!!

Right?

lollllllll.....

[babooph]

Prisons packed with wasted drug addicts,now a short stay in a "country club" prison for the well connected big shot-[he can keep the majority of $ he ripped off over his lifetime]-the bribe funds from the lobbyists he sent will not be looked at at all.The propaganda system will use this to show "equal justice".

[formrusmcsgt]

Jeez.

Just the mug on Angelo says "crook".....

[tbbaot]

Are they going to charge Chris Dodd for taking one of Mozillo's bribe mortgages?

[mcv57]

Hey, I have never seen SEC do their job, especially during the Bush Administration. Let's go for the bank and get G.B. and his hutchman, Chenney. Or is that just dreaming for poetic justice.

[TheStolenGiraffe]

on the street we call this guy "tan man"...for apparent reasons.

[Ichabod09]

Fraud or Fried-the dude has definitely got too much UV exposure.

[whitemale08]

How 'bout all of the counter-parties to all the worthless derivatives and credit-default swaps that were made whole with billions of taxpayer money when BoA supposedly bought Countrywide.

[wdh3007]

Does this charge include Chris Dodd and Barney Frank why the double standard?