"The S.E.C. exists to protect predatory organizations from investors"

That's the money quote from Harry Markopolos today at Congressional hearings on the Madoff debacle.



This guy is a hero. He absolutely destroyed the S.E.C. today. The S.E.C. flunkies afterwards wouldn't even answer questions.

Here's a link to his formal testimony today.

Here's a link to the report he sent to the SEC in 2005, giving up Madoff on a silver platter.

Unfortunately, Obama's pick for the S.E.C. is Mary Schapiro. He couldn't have picked a worse person for the job (from Wikipedia, which presumably Obama has access to on his Blackberry):

Schapiro was appointed in 1988 by President Reagan to fill one of two Democratic seats on the Securities and Exchange Commission. President Bush reappointed her to this position in 1989. President Clinton appointed her as acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then appointed her chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1994.

In 1996 she joined the NASD as the president of NASD Regulation. She became the vice chairman of position NASD in 2002, and in 2006 she became NASD's chairman and CEO. As the CEO of NASD she oversaw its consolidation with NYSE Member Regulation to form the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority [FINRA]. She is also a member of the boards of directors of Duke Energy and Kraft Foods. In January 2008, President Bush appointed Schapiro to the 19 member council of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy.

Markopolos today called FINRA "corrupt" (he called the S.E.C. merely "incompetent"), so Schapiro headed an arguably corrupt agency.

Who else was a big-wig at the NASD, which Schapiro first joined as president of REGULATION?? Bernie Madoff.

[Bernie Madoff] was active in the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a self-regulatory securities industry organization. His firm was one of the five most active in the development of the NASDAQ. He has served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and on the Board of Governors of the NASD.

Here's the video of the entire Markopolos/Madoff hearing.