Panel Told of F.B.I. Efforts to Fight Financial Crime

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Degene die betaalt, bepaalt - dus én Congress én President hebben geen
belang bij veranderingen, zolang de politici afhankelijk zijn van
bedrijven en kiezers voor hun financiële bijdragen voor
verkiezingscampagnes.
"Unlike other regulators, she said, the commission depends for its
financing on the president’s budget and Congressional appropriations"

Dus verandering betekent dat dit mechanisme verbroken wordt. Dat zou een
verandering van de grondwet inhouden. Dus vergeet het maar.

Voorbeeld: Burgemeester Bloomberg van NYC heeft de regels voor max. 2
termijnen door gemeenteraad laten veranderen, zodat hij na 2 termijnen
nog meer termijnen kan vervullen. Hij heeft ong. $103 miljoen uitgegeven
(hij is miljardair) aan zijn verkiezing en is met kleine meerderheid
herkozen.
Door de verandering van de termijnregels kunnen raadsleden nu ook in
aanmerking komen voor pensioenen van NYC (waren gebonden aan minimum
aantal jaren), dus budget moet omhoog.

Groet / Cees

January 15, 2010
Panel Told of F.B.I. Efforts to Fight Financial Crime
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/business/economy/15panel.html
By SEWELL CHAN

The F.B.I. is working on more than 2,800 mortgage fraud investigations,
almost five times the 534 cases in 2004, Attorney General Eric H. Holder
Jr. told the panel created by Congress to examine the causes of the
financial crisis on Thursday.

Mr. Holder was the first witness to appear as the panel, the Financial
Crisis Inquiry Commission, began its second day of hearings on Capitol Hill.

The attorney general told the commission of several of the agency’s
recent successes: the conviction of Bernard L. Madoff for running a
giant Ponzi scheme; the arrests of Raj Rajaratnam and Danielle Chiesi,
who have been accused of perpetrating the largest insider-trading ring
in the history of hedge funds; and the sentences meted out to officers
of National Century Financial Enterprises after their convictions on
conspiracy, fraud and money-laundering charges.

Of the 2,800 mortgage fraud investigations under way at the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, most — 1,842 — were classified as major cases,
which meant they involved more than $1 million in losses. As of
November, federal mortgage fraud-related charges were pending against
826 defendants.

Mr. Holder, who was joined by Lanny A. Breuer, the assistant attorney
general for the Justice Department’s criminal division, said that
federal authorities were determined to bring to justice “businesses or
individuals whose disregard for the law has hurt the pocketbooks” of
ordinary Americans.

Sheila C. Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,
who has been outspoken in her assessment of the regulatory system’s
failings, told the commission that it was essential to create a way of
breaking up large banks without resorting to government support.

“The financial crisis calls into question the fundamental assumptions
regarding financial supervision, credit availability, and market
discipline that have informed our regulatory efforts for decades,” she
told the commission. “We must reassess whether financial institutions
can be properly managed and effectively supervised through existing
mechanisms and techniques.”

But Ms. Bair also said that the underlying causes of the crisis were
deep-rooted.

“This crisis represents the culmination of a decades-long process by
which our national policies have distorted economic activity away from
savings and toward consumption, away from investment in our industrial
base and public infrastructure and toward housing, away from the real
sectors of our economy and toward the financial sector,” she said.

Mary L. Schapiro, chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,
also spoke of the need for broad regulatory reform, but she added a plea
for more stable budget resources.

Unlike other regulators, she said, the commission depends for its
financing on the president’s budget and Congressional appropriations.
“As a result, the S.E.C. has been unable to maintain stable, sufficient
long-term funding necessary to conduct long-term planning and lacks the
flexibility to apply resources rapidly to developing areas of concern,”
she said in prepared testimony.

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********