Honey, we're not making you responsible for the failure of the American economy, we're making you responsible for your failure. How do you find the real books, you ask? Haven't you ever heard of a "subpoena?"
Posted on 01/07/2009 3:55:03 AM PST by CutePuppy
The Securities and Exchange Commission's New York watchdog, under fire for failing to uncover Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme - despite a dead-on tip by a whistleblower - yesterday tearfully defended herself, arguing that she and the agency did the best job possible.
"Why are you taking a mid-level staff person and making me responsible for the failure of the American economy?" an upset Meaghan Cheung, with eyes tearing up, told The Post.
"I worked very hard for 10 years to make a career, and a reputation, and that has been destroyed in a month," said Cheung, who was the SEC's branch chief of the New York enforcement division during that unit's earlier probe of Madoff's brokerage business.
The 37-year-old has been singled out by whistleblower Harry Markopolos as the woman who failed to detect the scam despite his lengthy warnings. It was Cheung who signed off on a 2006 SEC investigation that effectively gave Madoff the all clear.
She said, "I was shocked" to learn last month that Madoff had been charged with - and confessed to - operating a massive Ponzi scheme at his Manhattan firm that swindled thousands of investors.
"I think it's a tragedy," said the married mother of two, who is a graduate of Yale University and Fordham University Law School.
But when asked if she would have done anything differently in her Madoff probe - which ended with "no evidence of fraud" - she demurred.
"I can't answer that," said Cheung, who left the SEC in September for personal reasons unrelated to Madoff. "If someone provides you with the wrong set of books, I don't know how you find the real books."
.....
"Cheung, branch chief in New York, actually investigated [Markopolos' claims] but with no result that I am aware of..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Government always fails top to bottom.
Honey, we're not making you responsible for the failure of the American economy, we're making you responsible for your failure. How do you find the real books, you ask? Haven't you ever heard of a "subpoena?"
SEC Watchdog...Alabama? Ole Miss? LSU?
Yes, but what about the "investigations" by responsible financial advisory firms that recommended to their clients that they stay away from Madloff? What about corroboration?
Clearly, by evidence of this interview; she is one who is easily intimidated. In this case, perhaps it was Madoff's last big job. . .
I've never had an auditing class and I can answer that one, and I don't even work for the SEC. First off, you verify cash balances against bank accounts for all cash accounts on the books. You verify balances with investors. You analyze accounts for transactional integrity (did the transactions recorded actually take place? Where's the paper trail? SHOW me the paper trail).
You perform a reasonableness test of the numbers. Does it look like the returns are reasonable? As an example (I don't have the real numbers), is the one being audited claiming 15% returns when everyone else is claiming 7%. Where are they invested? Are the investments the same ones that claim 7%?
Finding fraud CAN be done. There's a whole industry devoted to it. You can claim that fraud is hard to detect, which CPA's often do, but when you've been TIPPED to it, you have to do more due diligence to see if it's there.
This woman should at the least lose her cushy government job, and never be allowed back into the bureaucracy again.
[”Why are you taking a mid-level staff person and making me responsible for the failure of the American economy?”]
And who is to cast the first stone, given how often we all have personally made $50 brazillion dollar mistakes?
I hope this isn’t a bad mark on her gold star career advancement schedule. I’m sure doing $8 bucks an hour SEC work she was hard pressed to add whistleblowing to her other paper pushing duties.
Don’t know that they ever would, but this would be a perfect case to look into a very detailed way. Go back and look at her investigation with an eye to every little detail. Find out, once and for all, how a regulatory agency with the powers of the SEC could miss so badly.
tears and excuses - crying is dirty pool
I'll bet she was Dean's List, too. I'm getting the feeling that Ivy League schools exist only for the elites to expand their Rolodex's.
Judging by the collective performance of our "best and brightest", it's past time that an Ivy League diploma be a disqualifier on one's resume. Governor Palin was sneered at because she graduated from Idaho.
During my four years in college, I routinely competed with students from Idaho in smallbore rifle competition. To a one, they were as intelligent, if not moreso, than anyone I've seen graduating from an Ivy League school.
Women want all the pay and job titles of men, but none of the responsibilities or liabilities.
*ducks*
But after interviewing Madoff and a principal of Fairfield Greenwich Group -his biggest hedge-fund investor - as well as reviewing documents, the SEC probe "found no evidence of fraud," according to a case closing recommendation signed off by those three staffers.
This is what happens when unqualified people are put in positions of responsibility. Sounds like a prelude to things to come from the incoming obamarama administration, doesn't it?
Yet more proof that Yale and Fordham do a terrible job providing an actual education.
Those who invested with Madoff were so blinded by his record of consistently remarkable, above-average investment earnings, their own greed caused them to dodge reality.
"Too good to be true" is a constant in this world.
That said, nobody is ever held accountable in government. Government employees never get fired or thrown in jail even if their incompetence costs victims billions.
No doubt that's true of some women, however I've met plenty of men who want pay and titles while shirking responsibility. Unfortunately, there are people who have been placed in positions to which they're ill suited, but please don't assume that all women have this entitlement mentality or that it's limited to women.
This is typical of the SEC and other bureaucratic agencies.
They are looking for minor technical violations, not massive fraud. They are trying to prevent aggressive brokers from pushing the limits of the regulations.
Of course, given the nature of the allegations, they probably should have sent forensic accountants, if they have any.
Pedigree trumps competence every time.
Ever wonder why American business can't get their heads out of their @sses?
Harvard Business School.
I had a few auditing classes while earning my degree in public accounting, and speak from experience, as I've conducted audits of nonprofit agencies that received federal funding.
I am beyond appalled at the lack of professionalism shown by these regulators. It would not surprise me that competent attorneys will successfully sue the SEC/federal government on behalf of their clients.
I was fortunate to have received a real education at a fine university. I had the same accounting professor for over thirty hours. No matter the subject, he never used numbers...it was all about the underlying theory.
His tests (midterm and final) were a bear: five questions, all essay. On at least two of those five questions, the first sentence in reply would be "based on the information you've given me, I cannot answer this question". Then you'd have to explain why, analyzing the alternatives that were available.
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