http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/07/16/on-goldmans-giganto-profits/

Cox, who left the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January, will work in the firm’s corporate, mergers and acquisitions and securities practice area, and become a principal at its Bingham Consulting Group subsidiary.

I feel all happy inside.

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/07/bingham_mccutch_4.html

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2009/07/16/jon-stewart-slams-cramer-over-lenny-dykstra-bankruptcy/

Lawmakers hit out at Paulson over BofA-Merrill

Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:43pm EDT
By Mark Felsenthal and Alister Bull
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1640967120090716

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers on Thursday slammed former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson over the government’s role in Bank of America’s merger with Merrill Lynch, saying authorities suppressed information about losses and bullied executives into going through with the deal.

“The American people, investors, and the Congress were kept in the dark,” Rep. Edolphus Towns told Paulson at a hearing.

“There was no oversight to determine whether this arrangement made sense. In my view, this is unacceptable and must be prevented from happening again,” said Towns, the New York Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform panel.

Paulson gave little ground, acknowledging that he told Bank of America chief executive Kenneth Lewis the bank’s management and board could lose their jobs if the company backed away from the merger, but arguing he had done nothing inappropriate in warning Lewis that such a move would be a colossal blunder and might have repercussions.

“I was attempting to send a very strong message to Ken Lewis,” he said.

Government pressure on Lewis and Bank of America to go through with the deal came to light in April and has become a focal point of congressional ire over extensive bailouts of the financial system. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Bank of America’s Lewis testified at previous hearings.

“As most people look at this, they see a clear pattern of intimidation and deception,” Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said on Thursday.

Bernanke argued earlier the Fed had done nothing illegal or unethical in its efforts to convince Bank of America not to end the merger after discovering huge losses at Merrill. Lewis told the panel that authorities expressed “strong views” but said he would not characterize their stance as improper.

On Thursday, lawmakers sought to find a chink in Paulson’s armor from various angles but found few openings. One difficulty may have been that Paulson had left no email trail.

“I’ve never used it for any business communications. I’ve just never used it,” he told one lawmaker.

Democrats, including Rep. Dennis Kucinich, wondered why authorities didn’t impose tougher restrictions on Bank of America after it received a $20 billion infusion to help it weather its rocky absorption of Merrill.

“The lasting contribution of this committee’s investigation will be exposing Treasury and the Fed’s failure to require meaningful accountability from systemically significant banks in exchange for federal bailouts,” Kucinich said.

Lawmakers of both parties expressed frustration at Paulson for seeking congressional approval of a $700 billion fund to buy toxic assets from banks only to use it to take equity stakes in banks.

Paulson and other officials say the turnabout was necessary to react to a deepening crisis. Lawmakers knew they were giving the Treasury Department flexibility in how it used the funds, Paulson said.

Towns has said he plans to call officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission to testify on the merger.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

No!

SEC Gives ‘Wish List’ of 42 Changes it Wants in Securities Law
Thursday, July 16, 2009
SEC Gives ‘Wish List’ of 42 Changes it Wants in Securities Law
Rich Edson
FOXBusiness
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent a “wish list” to Capitol Hill of 42 changes it would like made to federal securities law.
This list, obtained by FOX Business from a person on Capitol Hill, contains proposed alterations that the SEC believes would help strengthen regulation of the financial-services industry. The proposals likely wouldn’t be brought up as legislation on their own, but could possibly be attached to a larger bill at some point.

See our SEC page for the latest videos and news on the commission.

Below are about a dozen of those suggestions.

Authorize the SEC to pay awards to individuals who provide information to the agency leading to the successful enforcement of the federal securities laws.
A regulated person who violates the securities laws in one part of the securities industry — for example, a broker-dealer who misappropriates customer funds — should be barred from access to customer funds in another part of the industry.
Authorize the SEC to pay awards to individuals who provide information to the agency leading to the successful enforcement of the federal securities laws.
Authorize expanded access to grand jury materials when such information is critical to SEC cooperative investigations (with potential attendant safeguards to insure that the Commission maintains the confidentiality of the information) similar to access available to banking regulators.
Authorize the SEC to obtain records from financial institutions in the same manner as it does from other third-party record holders.
Amend numerous provisions of the federal securities laws to make it explicit (clarify or confirm) that the SEC has the authority to bring actions against persons formerly associated with a regulated or supervised entity for misconduct that occurred during that association.
Clarify U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction under antifraud provisions of securities laws, overwriting disparate judicial tests by combining both (effects and conduct). U.S. courts would have jurisdiction over “conduct occurring outside the United States that has a foreseeable substantial effect within the United States.”
Authorize the SEC to set illiquid security limits for mutual funds because of the redeemability requirement.
Give Public Company Accounting Oversight Board authority to inspect auditors of broker dealers.
Give the SEC the same authority to examine “all” records of registered investment companies that it has had for other registered entities, including broker-dealers and investment advisers, since 1975.
Amend Exchange Act to permit exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, to go to court on their own behalf to enforce compliance with fully litigated disciplinary sanctions, including fines and restitution.
Amend Sarbanes-Oxley 806 to make clear that subsidiaries and affiliates of issuers may not retaliate against whistleblowers.
Provide clarity for the SEC and provide greater ability to regulate the stock loan market.
The amendment would require the personnel of registered securities information processors, national securities exchanges, and national securities associations to be fingerprinted.
Here’s the full list of 42 items:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/sec-gives-wish-list–changes-wants-securities-law/#

7-15-09 5:45 PM EDT
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200907151745DOWJONESDJONLINE000860_univ.xml

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Much has changed at the Justice Department since the Obama administration took charge, but one controversial tactic in corporate- crime cases has not: the use of settlements that allow corporations to avoid prosecution for wrongdoing.

The department has entered into 10 of these agreements at the mid-point of 2009, a pace slightly ahead of 2008, when the department entered into 18 agreements over the whole year, according to a report by the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

And the pace could quicken in the coming months if the department builds criminal cases against firms that are connected to the economic meltdown. “There could be a lot of deferred prosecution agreements coming out of that,” law-firm partner Joseph Warin said.

Under the agreements, called deferred prosecution agreements or non- prosecution agreements, a corporation typically pays a fine and agrees to take a number of steps to remedy its wrongdoing, in exchange for a government promise not to prosecute.

Notable agreements this year include settlements in which UBS AG (UBS) admitted to helping wealthy Americans evade taxes and Beazer Homes USA Inc. ( BZH) admitted to mortgage fraud and securities fraud violations, the first deferred prosecution agreement tied to the mortgage meltdown.

These types of agreements were largely unheard of a decade ago, but their use has grown rapidly in recent years, especially since accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP collapsed after its 2002 criminal conviction on obstruction-of- justice charges related to the Enron scandal. The firm’s demise resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs. The conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court, but the damage already had been done.

Justice Department lawyer Gary Grindler, testifying at a U.S. House hearing last month, said deferred prosecution agreements ensure that corporations face serious consequences for wrongdoing while also minimizing the impact to innocent third parties. Employees, shareholders and customers all can be harmed when a corporation is prosecuted, he said.

But critics, including some lawmakers, have suggested that the agreements encourage disrespect for the law and fail to hold corporations fully accountable for their actions.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., speaking at the same hearing, said companies ” shouldn’t necessarily get a sweetheart deal because they are a corporation and be subjected to a different set of justice than an individual would.”

Other critics have approached the issue from a different angle, questioning whether the deals give prosecutors too much leverage over corporations and allow them to extract penalties in questionable cases where in the past the government would have chosen not to prosecute.

A preliminary U.S. Government Accountability Office report, released last month, said federal prosecutors around the country varied in their willingness to use the agreements, and in the conditions they included in them.

Warin of Gibson Dunn said there have been several notable variances in the agreements reached so far this year.

Under the Beazer Homes deal, announced earlier this month, the home builder cannot make statements that contradict its acceptance of responsibility for its criminal wrongdoing, but if the company faces related lawsuits from private parties, it can argue that the government’s allegations should not apply in those cases.

“Many prosecutors won’t agree to that provision,” Warin said.

As part of the UBS agreement, prosecutors allowed the bank to continue to fight a high-stakes IRS summons that seeks the identities of 52,000 clients who may have used UBS accounts to evade taxes.

A settlement involving WellCare Health Plans Inc. (WCG) required the company to post copies of the deferred prosecution agreement and the Justice Department’s charges prominently on its Web site until the agreement expires.

The deal, announced in May, resolved charges that the company defrauded Florida’s Medicaid and Healthy Kids programs.

-By Brent Kendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9222; brent.kendall@ dowjones.com

I’m sure his viewers would be captivated.

Mark, Patrick and Judd, I give thanks every day for your noble work. As bad off as it seems we are, where would we be without you?

The Glenn Beck piece on Goldman Sachs… well I would say it is unbelievable, except is it undeniable.

This is a must see video in which Patrick appears!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVQ3_ZaYB4

Here’s clip of PB on Glenn Beck

Dealing with Goldman Sachs and the captured NY financial press.

Look for the “DeepCapture” under Patrick’s name (he appears at the 7′ 40″ mark).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVQ3_ZaYB4

William J. Bennett, in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy on November 24, 1997 said: “Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.” We may well be in the most violent times in history but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
Then there are the wolves and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You’d better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
Then there are sheepdogs and I’m a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence, then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep.
If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog – a warrior – someone who is walking the uncharted path – someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

http://banking.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=b4b5348b-ba91-4512-bca2-bf45b2e5fbde

I will have to search for the recorded version…. maybe on YouTube?