Courtesy of Pam Martens.
Paul Atkins, Former SEC Commissioner, Shaping Perceptions on Fox News
Wall Street has marshaled every ounce of political and public relations clout it can muster to defeat Eliot Spitzer from advancing into the position of New York City Comptroller. The New York City primary is tomorrow and, like clockwork, today’s Wall Street Journal’s opinion page features a vicious attack on Spitzer by Paul Atkins, a former SEC Commissioner turned public relations pro/opinion writer/media pundit and consultant to Wall Street.
Atkins heads a firm, Patomak Global Partners, that provides consulting and litigation support to the financial services industry. Its web site boasts that “Our professional team includes two former Commissioners and a former General Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and others with diverse backgrounds and senior management experience in both public and private sector leadership positions.” In other words, they have finely honed the revolving door model and will deliver it to your corporate doorstep.
Atkins served on the staff of SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt in years prior to becoming an SEC Commissioner himself. When Gary Weiss authored Wall Street Versus America: The Rampant Greed and Dishonesty That Imperil Your Investments, he had this to say about Levitt:
“Levitt presided over the worst abuses to descend upon Wall Street since the 1920s. He failed miserably at dealing with the problems that he did not ignore entirely, but he did a couple of things better than just about any recent SEC chairman in history — give speeches, and court the press.”
Atkins was appointed to the SEC as a Commissioner by President George W. Bush and served from 2002 to 2008 – the critical years leading up to the implosion of Wall Street and a period when the SEC failed to remove its rose-colored glasses long enough to see a frightening level of leverage, insanely concocted derivatives and off-balance sheet risks heading like a heat-seeking missile directly at the U.S. economy.
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