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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (164440)	3/26/2009 9:07:44 PM
From: cirrus	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362386

The gentleman who ran AIG FS and lit the fuse that eventually let to the implosion was paid $280 million from 2001 through 2008. Did he deliberately engage in activities that he knew would eventually send AIG into virtual bankruptcy and the free world to the brink of financial disaster? Did the AIG Board know? The AIG Auditors? Probably not. Some, like Warren Buffett, did. So... where do the regulators fit in? On one hand we have a sophisticated mess that AIG created with both eyes open. There is no assurance any regulatory agency, even one with broad powers, would have been effective in preventing the AIG mess. How could there be any reasonable assurance? Arthur Anderson missed the Enron shennanigans, but Sherri Watson knew... but it did little good. Ponzi schemes have been illegal for half a century and yet, despite folks banging on the door warning the SEC about Madoff, a $50 billion Ponzi scheme operated right under their noses. Something tells me that we're missing the boat here. We need to stop sending memos and printing regulations and rethink this. The regulatory system is broken and we need to redesign it for the future... to deal with crisis producing practices BEFORE they evolve into crisis. My thinking is we need more transparency... the internet makes it possible to have thousands of eyes scrutinizing financial details... perhaps the regulations need to focus on getting accurate details out to the public and let the internet wiseguys take it from there. I don't know. But all the new regulations in the world won't prevent the next AIG, Madoff or Enron. Simply adding more regulations is like adding more guns and armor to a $500,000 Hummer - only to have it destroyed by a $99 roadside bomb.