Replies to post #607942 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[zab]

Watching my screens, trying to decide what kind of market will appear today. Talk about being locked in a trading range, or being range bound. Wondering if gold will hold its gains here, I don't think we can penetrate the 900 level yet, believe the market might keep us on hold until the new year.

Quite honestly this week is not proceeding as I thought again, staying nimble. Still favor gold stocks, and oil DXO as a play. Feel like everyone is waiting around for something to happen, guess we are all in that category, we just have to learn to be patient and wait for direction.

zab

[basserdan]

>>>The SEC has turned out to be all but nonfunctional. Even McCain said Cox was an idiot who should be fired.<<<

Hi osprey,
To me, McClain's comment was the highlight of his campaign as it signalled an awareness on high of the decay in the SEC and, as a result, buoyed my hopes for an uncorrupted no-nonsense replacement when Cox stepped down in January.

Unfortunately, the Pres-elect didn't share that view and it seems to me that with Schapiro's nomination the odds are very high that as far as the SEC is concerned, it will be biznez as usual!

Naturally, the Madoff money trail of special favors and exceptions leads straight to Washington. From 1998 through 2008, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities paid $590,000 lobbying Congress and the SEC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His lobby firm for most of those years was Lent, Scrivner & Roth, with Norman F. Lent III signing the disclosure documents in the House and Senate. One of Madoff’s hot button issues during those years according to the disclosure documents was getting a single regulator. That meant, for starters, merging those prying eyes over at the New York Stock Exchange into the clubby pool of self-regulators at the National Association of Securities Dealers where the Madoff family held numerous seats of power. That wish came true when NASD Regulation merged with the enforcement and arbitration units of the New York Stock Exchange in July 2007 to create the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). CEO of the consolidated body is Mary Schapiro, who formerly headed up NASD Regulation, one of the most conflicted bodies in the history of finance. Ms. Schapiro has just been nominated by President-Elect Barack Obama to be the new SEC Chair. Expect to hear more about killing off the SEC (instead of giving it some teeth) and giving Madoff and his fellow miscreants their ultimate dream of just one compromised regulator instead of three.

http://www.counterpunch.org/martens12222008.html