Courtesy of Larry Doyle.
In preparation for my talk tomorrow at the Library of Congress, I gathered some quotes from my book to share with those in attendance regarding shortcomings and failures within our financial regulatory system. I think these quotes are evidence of meaningful corruption.
pg 105, Attorney Richard Greenfield
“We were able to get discovery, that is document presentation from the NASD (FINRA), very early on. Many of these documents were produced under a confidentiality order; in other words, the NASD wouldn’t produce them unless they could be kept confidential, i.e not in the public record. These documents showed unequivocally that the NASD defendants lied to the members of the NASD. Blatantly, unequivocally, you can’t put any coloration on it, you can’t say they were negligent. They intentionally lied. The lies are repeated over and over in a proxy statement. They are repeated in road shows taken all around the country.”
pg 144, former SEC Attorney Gary Aguirre
“By the time I was fired, I pretty much figured out what was going on at the SEC. I saw how the Enforcement Division — from the top down– had acted to block the Mack investigation, despite the fact that the evidentiary trail led directly to his door. I saw how SEC management would create a fictional rationale for not pursuing the investigation against John Mack, which would be immediately replaced with a new one as the last one imploded. Somewhere between the third and fourth fictionalized account, I understood just how deeply the corruption was embedded in Enforcement’s management. By the time they fired me, my reaction was: Do they really think they’ll get away with it?”
pg 187 Harvard economist Niall Ferguson
I believe the course we must take is clear. As Harvard economist Niall Ferguson opined in a Barron’s interview in April 2012, “When countries improve rule of law, property rights, and investor protections, and when regulation becomes more transparent and corruption reduced, there are major payoffs.”
I am immensely grateful to those at the Library of Congress for inviting me to speak. I fully respect and appreciate that I would not be granted this privilege in many countries around the world.
Let’s fight to keep this nation great.
