Why the SEC Didn't Catch Madoff

[wserra]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... n-at-work/

As a friend of mine put it, the reporter who wrote this piece obviously never heard of the SEC's secret porn-investigation division, SECSEE.

[Judge Roy Bean]

So if a company of ~3,000 can have its IT people do this, why can't the SEC or the federal government? Is it that they are lazy? Stupid? Both?

You might have overlooked the government contracting and procurement processes.

[Brandybuck]

Commenting on your title, the answer is simple. Perfect crime prevention does not exist. The assumption that the SEC can prevent all possible financial crime is wrong. It's like assuming the police can stop all murders. We don't have enough cops to police everyone's behavior 24 hours a day (and even if we could we would NOT want to). Ditto for the SEC. It simply does not have the manpower to pour over every financial document produced. Increasing its power every time a financial crime occurs is like giving the police more armaments every time a murder occurs: that eventually results in a police state.

The best defense remains an assumption of innocence and harsh punishment for those found guilty.

[Demosthenes]

It simply does not have the manpower to pour over every financial document produced.

vs.

The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: "It was kind of distraction per se," he later told investigators.

[Brandybuck]

The number of financial documents produced per microsecond dwarfs that 1800.

p.s. Of course, I am of the opinion that surfing the intertoobs for pr0n is a better use of my tax dollars than are the usual SEC functions.