Courtesy of Pam Martens
Gary Gensler
Last Tuesday, Wall Street was stewing over the Reuters report that President-Elect Joe Biden was likely to name Gary Gensler, the former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as the new Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The CFTC oversees the futures market. The SEC oversees the trading of stocks; the stock exchanges; the broker-dealers and investment banks that underwrite and trade stocks; and how all of these firms interact with investors. The SEC also oversees Wall Street’s dubious Dark Pools – which Wall Street On Parade has challenged as engaging in potentially illegal behavior.
By Friday, January 15, Wall Street’s banks ended in a sea of red with Citigroup losing a whopping 6.93 percent on the day. All of the mega banks posted losses far exceeding the meager 0.57 percent decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday.
Yesterday, the Biden team confirmed Gensler’s nomination to the post.
Gensler chaired the CFTC from May 26, 2009 to January 3, 2014. Gensler had previously served as a Senior Advisor to Senator Paul Sarbanes in writing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. That legislation imposed criminal penalties, including prison time, if CEOs and CFOs knowingly sign off on financial statements they know to be false. Wall Street has never forgiven Gensler for that. Thus, Gensler is now a Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management rather than serving in a cushy job on Wall Street.
Gensler also served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton Administration. He earned his undergraduate degree in economics in 1978 and his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.
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