Janet opines in the Huffer's Post this morning....
Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and he has reportedly circulated a letter in the House asking for an independent investigator and is seeking signatures and support. Obviously appearances are important, and the "investigation" into MF Global so far has every appearance of being broadly compromised. Given our ongoing financial crisis and bailouts, so far it's a shameful performance by Congress, Justice, regulators, and the bankruptcy trustees. The dialogue the financial community has heard so far lacks credibility and basic decency.
No kidding. But it certainly is congruent with what we've seen thus far going back to 2008 when it comes to these firms.
This is not a MF Global-only story. There are more than enough cockroaches and rattlesnakes in the den here to cover the world several times over. The sins go back to 2003 and even before; as I've repeatedly written about back in the 1990s Clinton's Administration knew that there was massive fraud going on in the Internet space with regard to securities claims and made the intentional and willful decision to do exactly nothing about it.
How do I know this? Because I was one of the people who spoke directly with people inside his administration and told them so.
It didn't matter, just like it didn't matter this time. Nor will it the next, so long as we the people of this country continue to believe we can find redress at the ballot box by voting for either Republicans or Democrats.
There are other candidates on the ballot. Unfortunately there are also infiltrators (cough-Johnson-cough) on some of those tickets as well, and what there are not are principled leaders in those parties -- cough-Hinkle-cough -- who will stand up and say "no damn way are you doing that crap here."
So here we are, six months or so away from an election, with one party running under two names and a third party running under the same name when it comes to financial frauds.
I hope Janet will pardon me if I don't believe that Mr. Grimm is serious in his intent; I'll take him seriously when a special prosecutor is appointed and indictments issue -- and not one minute before.
