Posted on 02/09/2009 2:01:33 PM PST by george76
The top cop at the Securities and Exchange Commission is leaving the government less than a week after receiving an angry dressing-down before Congress over the agency's failure to detect a massive alleged fraud scheme.
Thomsen was front and center at a Feb. 4 hearing by a House subcommittee investigating the Madoff affair and the enforcement breakdown at the SEC. She was put on the defensive by lawmakers and forced to defend the SEC's position that she and other officials couldn't publicly discuss details of the matter because of an ongoing investigation by the agency's inspector general.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
A $50 billion ponzi scheme is nothing compared to our government’s idiotic stimulus bill, will be perpetrating one of the greatest financial frauds on the American people in the history of mankind.
scapegoat?
I’d say more like just “goat.”
Should have been fired before she had the chance to resign.
The SEC was created to keep out the *undesirables* not for enforcing any sort of rules or regs.
at least she took the elevator and not the 20-story leap on her way out.
If they could fire Chris Cox twice, they’d do it.
Plus the government’s largest Ponzi Scheme ever. Our Social
Security Program. Add that to the idiotic stimulus bill and now you are talking some real money.
He was on a real roll too ..
I watched her testimony, if you want to call it that. She should have quit - she needed to go home and take care of that nasty rash on her neck.
lol.. so you don’t support a future run for Gub or the Senate in California for Chris. Got it. ;-)
Look who just quit ping!
One of the things that is not discussed is that Madoff was a fraudster who practiced what is called “affinity fraud.” In other words, he picked a group with which he had an in, exploited it, and was completely callous in ripping off other members of his group.
He focused on Jewish groups because he seemed like a respectable well-off Jewish businessman and he was from a well-off family that contributed to Jewish causes; this enabled him to buy the trust of other Jews (including his family members) and of Jewish institutional investors.
We had a Haitian here in Florida who did the same thing to the Haitian community. Granted, he ripped them off for far fewer millions, but that was simply because they don’t have as much and he didn’t have enough time.
But a fraud that involves a relatively closed group is very hard to identify until it implodes. People don’t complain, people are less suspicious, and then one day they wake up and their money is gone.
Yes, she was not a very charming individual.
It’s not unusual for an Enforcement Director to leave after a few years, though her tenure was on the short side. Her reputation, even apart from Madoff, was pretty lackluster. She was certainly not a “star.” She’ll land a job in private practice, but I wouldn’t bet she winds up with the kinds of big firm, big buck partnerships her immediate predecessors got.
Thanks for the ping.
Her hearing performance was miserable. That said, I wonder if she’s the fall guy.
However, Mr. Markopolos did spell out the fraud for the useless SEC, and the fraudster had been Chairman of the NASD and subsequently continued as a member of the NASD Board of Governors. Madoff was trading on people’s affinity for a senior member of the regulatory structure, as well the Jewish country club affinity thing, and the SEC should have been VERY interesed in pursuing credible allegations of the former.
Perhaps. She is probably being paid to keep her mouth shut and to ‘disappear’.
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