BERNIE & THE DOMINOS; 3 MORE 'SCAMS' EXPOSED (Islanders co-owners arrested as Ponzians)

NY POST ^ | 2/26/09 | BRUCE GOLDING

[Liz]

Madoff's $50B fraud set off a run on investment companies, sending dominos falling one by one......James Nicholson's Westgate Capital fund tried to reassure investors, sending out $5M in checks - which bounced....$900M may be missing and more than 350 victims. Former Islanders co-owners Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, ran "an egregious fraud of immense proportions," said the SEC.....clients included charitable and university foundations and pension funds...... Records showed that of $812M in assets, $794M were in promissory notes from Greenwood and Walsh.

[Liz]

It's getting ugly out there.

[Jimmy Valentine]

The entire Securities Exchange Commission above clerk level should be terminated and the agency retooled.

They missed every warning sign; they ignored every violation.

They are as culpable as Madoff.

[mewzilla]

Don't forget the Congressional oversight committees.

I still wanna know if anyone on the Hill was running interference for the scam artists.

And why hardly any Critters and Senators have lost their shirts.

[MarkT]

But they work for the government and their intentions are good. Wait til one-size-fits-all O gets really tooled up...ya ain’t seen nothin yet.

[at bay]

Wow, this is outrageous. Fellow freepers, you all know I can be trusted. Send me your money and I will invest it wisely. Don’t ask too many questions. A fool or institutional fools and their money are soon parted.

[Liz]

The entire Securities Exchange Commission above clerk level should be terminated and the agency retooled..........Don't forget the Congressional oversight committees.

Amen

[Thrownatbirth]

And why hardly any Critters and Senators have lost their shirts.

If you knew the volume of bad loans Dodd and Frank were pushing out of FannieMae/FreddieMac with all their limp-wristed might, you'd put your cash in a mattress too.

[durasell]

Better headlines if they owned the Jets....

[Liz]

Wait til one-size-fits-all O gets really tooled up.......ya ain’t seen nothin yet.

Obama and Michele see themselves as deconstructionists----tearing down the establishment and radically remaking the natural order. Anything that smacks of tradition or history is targeted for destruction.

[Liz]

Portrait of a con artist--note the winsome, crinkly smile, and the innocent, doe-eyed demeanor.

" I'm Bernie. Trust me"

Bernie ought to be prosecuted for the criminal use of gravitas.

[1010RD]

Why have an SEC or any oversight from Congress?

Government by its nature is political and politics is the business of favors and debts. Favors and debts are corruption.

Imagine if there were no regulation of financial markets. People would be rightly afraid and cautious. It would lower the risk appetite.

The market would respond by creating proper transparency, ratings, insurance, etc.

We knew it was a farce for a long time. The voices of reason could be ignored because the “experts” were on it and watching our backs.

Once again (is this the billionth or trillionth time?) our “representatives” forgot to represent us.

It is we who are stupid/insane if you believe more regulation by the same rapists, enablers and ignoramuses will work.

[CutePuppy]

Nicholson's attorney is (drumroll!) Ira Lee Sorkin, Madoff's attorney and beneficiary of parents' retirement account that he withdrew a year before Madoff's blowup.

From WSJ: Pair Lived Large on Fraud, U.S. Says

Alleged victims include Carnegie Mellon University, which had invested more than $49 million, and the University of Pittsburgh, which put in more than $65 million, court records show. The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System said it had invested about $339 million, or 2% of its portfolio. The Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System in California said on its Web site that it had invested $89.9 million, or 1.6% of its total fund.

.....

Separately, another alleged fraud began unfolding Wednesday when the U.S. attorney charged hedge-fund manager James Nicholson with securities and bank fraud in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Prosecutors don't have a clear idea of the size of the alleged loss, saying only that as much as $900 million could have been invested with his firm.

'Enhanced Stock Indexing'

Federal prosecutors allege that since 1996, Messrs. Greenwood and Walsh ran a fraudulent investment-advisory scheme, involving several companies, in which they promised to invest funds in a program called "enhanced stock indexing." It was represented as a conservative trading strategy that had outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 Index for more than 10 years. Prosecutors allege the men raised more than $668 million from institutional clients, and misappropriated most of the money.

.....

Westridge Capital managed $1.8 billion in assets, the firm told the SEC in an adviser-registration filing in January. It oversaw a total of 20 accounts primarily for institutions including pension funds, charitable foundations and hedge funds, according to the filing. It lists Messrs. Walsh and Greenwood as principals since 1999.

WG Trading Co. reported consistently positive returns, according to hedgefund.net, a provider of fund data to investors. From January 1995 to September 2008, WG Trading never reported a negative month. Typically it gained from to 0.10% to 1% a month during that time, as part of a low-risk strategy designed to outperform major market indexes.

.....

Now, that is what I would call some "bull" market.

[wita]

Don’t forget the Congressional oversight committees.

Or the house and senate banking committees, or Execs and proponents of Fannie and Freddie. Yea I’m talking about Chris and Barney.

[maggief]

This is a rare time I’m siding with Kucinich.

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=112160

Kucinich: Who Told SEC to “Stand Down” on Stanford Probe?
Chairman of Domestic Policy Subcommittee Opens Inquiry

Washington, Feb 20 -

Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today sent a letter to Ms. Mary Schapiro, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting documents that could reveal which government agency told the SEC to “stand down” rather than take enforcement action against the Stanford Group in October 2006 as has been reported by the New York Times.

Recent media reports have indicated that the SEC was aware of improprieties at Stanford Financial Group as early as October 2006, but withheld action at the request of another government agency.

In a report published in the February 17th edition of the New York Times, an SEC official said that an inquiry had been opened on Stanford in October of 2006. According to the Times report, an associate regional director of enforcement said the SEC “stood down” on its investigation as a result of the intervention of another federal agency.

Stanford is now the focus of an $8 billion fraud investigation and, presumably, an earlier inquiry would have spared many Stanford investors and triggered similar inquiries into other funds which lacked transparency.

“The SEC’s recent filing against Stanford stemmed from the 2006 SEC inquiry that had been apparently shelved at the request of the unnamed agency. If this is true, we must find out why the SEC delayed enforcement, and if there were other cases where other government agencies intervened to block enforcement,” Chairman Kucinich said.

“If the SEC did indeed begin an inquiry in 2006 and was called off by another agency, our subcommittee will demand that the SEC reveal the name of that agency which told it not to enforce federal laws which protect investors,” said Chairman Kucinich.

[Hardastarboard]

Jimmy Valentine hits it right out of the park. The SEC, a creation of His Holiness FDR, has proven its worthlessness over and over during this crisis. From the clear failures of both the SEC and Sarbanes Oxley, it should be obvious to anyone but a liberal that the failure OF government regulation is the problem, not the failure TO regulate.

[mewzilla]

Snort :) Good point. But I’d also like to know if any pols had any money invested with any of these scam artists, but then got out early, before they could lose their shirts. Nothing like early warning, eh? Inquiring minds wanna know.

[Liz]

This is a rare time I’m siding with Kucinich.

I'll go you one better .

(Praying for the strength to go on).

The only one of Obama's appointees---so far--that looks almost competent is......(gulp) Hillary......... (inhales smelling salts to revive).

[mewzilla]

Why have an SEC or any oversight from Congress?

Because trust is the coin of the realm and markets can't run without it. I'm not for throwing the regulatory baby out with the bath water. Or for piling on a whole lotta new regs. I'm for thorough enforcement of what's on the books now, knowing that we may have to tweak the regs from time to time to adapt to changes in the marketplace.

[Liz]

"Yo, Chris, Barney. Wanna go down the fruit cellar with me to see Mother?"

[Mr. Jeeves]

They missed every warning sign; they ignored every violation.

They were paid off to look the other way.

And no one in government will ever dare admit it, so they'll keep peddling the "incompetence" angle.