Courtesy of Pam Martens
Yesterday, Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, delivered a speech at the virtual Piper Sandler Global Exchange and FinTech Conference. Gensler promised to tackle at least some of the tricked-up aspects of the U.S. stock market that have rendered it the envy of organized crime, rather than the envy of the world as Wall Street titans like to delude themselves.
If Gensler actually follows through on his promise, he will be doing far more than was done by Obama’s SEC chiefs, Mary Schapiro and Mary Jo White.
There is a precise date as to when President Obama and SEC Chair Mary Jo White became overtly aware that the stock market structure had been outrageously rigged. That date is March 30, 2014 when famed author and former Wall Street veteran, Michael Lewis, went on 60 Minutes to proclaim: “The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism, is rigged.”
When asked to explain just who it is that’s rigging the stock market, Lewis explained that it’s a “combination of these stock exchanges, the big Wall Street banks and high-frequency traders.”
Not only was nothing done by the Obama administration to stop the rigging of the market, but the rigging has actually gotten much worse with the proliferation of Wall Street banks’ Dark Pools and hedge funds taking over big chunks of stock market structure.
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