Madoff had auditors signing off on the statements?
Maybe Cox should run a simple Grantee/Grantor search or credit report on his staffers....
Cox was my congressman - useless here and useless at the SEC.
Can I assume O can replace him?
Is this the same SEC that failed us in the matter of FannieMae and FreddieMac? Why aren’t heads rolling at this den of incompetence? OH, government bureaucrats don’t get fired for incompetence! Excuse me. I must have lost my head for even thinking so.
The “colossal failure of epic proportions” defense does not work anymore. Cox is in charge. Cox blew it. If he is not honorable enough to remove himself, WE must see to it that he is removed.
The fox has been guarding the hen house.
Yeah but they jailed Martha Stewart. That was their major coup of the century.
Chris Cox — master of the obvious.
Cox and Paulson have done more to damage the reputation of the GOP as competent stewards of money and wealth than any other two political appointees in history.
If Bush had a pair of brain cells to rub together between his ears, he would have thrown both of these idiots out of their positions in September, when it appeared that they were going to be the financial equivalent of Brown at New Orleans.
cox will be gone very soon
The SEC is like the police. They investigate when there are complaints. Presumably, the investors who thought they were receiving 12% a year, and could withdraw their money at any time, did not complain much.
How is that naked shorting going cox/ Or maybe you could reinstate the uptick rule on shorting you moron. You helped elect O and helped Soros take the country over.
Two possible reason for the SEC not to have investigated Madoff.
1) Payoffs to SEC staff.
2) SEC management did not want to investigate Madoff due to his ‘influential’ investors and the trouble they would created for the SEC staff. Did you see the who’s who of Madoff investors? Any attempt to have audited Madoff who have resulted in ‘politically correct’ lynching.
Madoff and Levitt were bosom buddies.
Cox should be sacked, re-hired, and sacked again.
Chris Cox has been a huge disappointment at the SEC. It’s as if he’s a test case for the Peter Principle. What a shame.
I suspect there will be more.
I doubt it was a coincidence that 1st we had the banks and Wall Street largest players and then the whole group and now the hedge hogs. The hedge fund issue has been discussed on some investment forums for well over a year.
Almost like a well timed plan.
Just another worthless federal agency wasting good tax money that US families could be using to accomplish worthwhile things.
And some people actually want to put the feds in charge of their health care. They must be smoking crack.
Campaign contributions work.
“SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he is “gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures” by staff to look into claims about Madoff’s business and to seek formal authority to investigate.”
He was often talked about for Calif. Senator, or even for President, since he was on the surface the poster boy for the perfect conservative.
He sure managed to sit idly by while so many problems took place.
Bush with his MBA appointed a bunch of weak players, took their bad advice, delegated to them, and remained loyal to them; them to him.
Aside from his military adventures, his tax cuts and his appointment of two conservatives to the SC, Bush leaves quite a mess as he departs.
An embarrassed Christopher Cox said he is probing whether SEC staff allowed swindler Madoff to walk away from numerous fraud complaints.... among the issues that Cox said are under investigation in a sweeping internal probe of the bungled case is that a Madoff family member was married to a onetime SEC official.
"The Commission has learned that credible and specific allegations regarding Mr. Madoff's financial wrongdoing, going back to at least 1999, were repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff, but were never recommended to the Commission for action," Cox said last night. "I am gravely concerned by the apparent multiple failures over at least a decade to thoroughly investigate these allegations or at any point to seek formal authority to pursue them. Moreover, a consequence of the failure to seek a formal order of investigation is that subpoena power was not used to obtain information, but rather information voluntarily produced by Mr. Madoff and his firm," Cox said......
Shana Madoff Swanson, Madoff's niece has been married to Eric Swanson, assistant director of the SEC's Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations' market-oversight unit, since 2006.
Shana Swanson is compliance attorney at Madoff's firm. Eric Swanson, according to the SEC, had overseen two inspections of Madoff's firm in 1999 and 2004. He left the agency in 2006.
SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/seven/12172008/business/madoff_family_ties_144527.htm