Buried in page C14 of the New York Times was the story of the SEC newest effort to erode individual shareholders rights.
The change is pushed by corporate crooks in the making and some Congress members. The SEC vote took place under the new strategy of Chairman Cox on December 13, 2005. This will not be a date to remember for individual investors who care about their freedom to know and invest securely.
Among other supporters of this private investor erosion of rights is our own Congresswoman Sue Kelly. Congress woman Kelly, whom, she has advocated to deregulate “small business“. The problem with the term “small’ is that on these folks views “small” means anything less than $700 million. No your majority and normal town business. Also, not to forget are the elected Congress members Lowey and Engel. None of these two have raise their voice to oppose such damaging changes to investors, that increases risk to assume reporting is not manipulated and cooked by corporate crooks as we have learned in the past few years.
We have such large pool of crooks in corporate America that decimating Sarbanex-Oxley legislation will be the wrong message for the wrong reasons.
Although, Sarbox is nothing to cheer as a protection for individual investors, it is better than standing naked at 20 below zero, which will be the equivalent of this regulation change.
The politicians continued abuse of Orwellian language and non-stop redefinition of meanings, is very dangerous to any society.
The SEC latest proposals and measures affects all citizen investments, these investments are being put at a higher unnecessary risk.
The vote at the SEC went 18-1. The dissenter was the president of the Center for Financial and Market Integrity. You might wonder why the person advocating for markets integrity loses the battle, overturning 404 Sarbox (as is commonly referred). This is part of the radical right corporatist ideology, to shift risk from this new monarchy to the people.
The way it works is not too complicated. By making the alternatives to savings and returns to be placed in higher risk investments, then the laws supporting ownership of holdings get devaluated, by stripping of shareholders rights, thus eliminating accountability from the perpetrators of malfeasance, leaving the investors holding worthless paper and retirees wondering where is the next job at half minimum wage at 65 years of age. This vote an the present political position is a devastating event for individual investors.
The danger here for all of us is the lack of accountability of our elected officials, and we are the ones allowing them to walk away unquestioned.
The continued positioning of regulations deterring shareholders rights, has reach levels in which all equities and share-ownership is the equivalent of a sophisticated Ponzi scheme. This is supported by the government and fall on the backs of Americans. It is not me saying this it is, the last five Nobel prizes of economics are saying this in many ways.
It an era in which most of our savings are induced by government legislation to be placed in the riskiest of investments as in the stock market, the lack of solid pensions must has directed to strenghent private investor rights,, not to decrease them. A large amount of blame falls in the hands of mutual funds. Who by supporting crooked accounting on corporate America, have not made and statement and divest from companies that blatantly silence the truth of their accounting methods. Most of equity invest today is in untrustworthy assets, most equities have underlining worthless claims.
This is a system that it is in a path of accelerated booms and bust (as the recent stock market internet crash) moving wealth from the savers to the rulers, most of the benefits go to the very few who control the Ponzi scheme.
The pressure exercised today by Congress members and the Bush administration to annul the Sarbanes Oxley Legislation, when they should protect investors from crooked accounting and internal systems that allowed CEOs to commit fraud, it is in the opposite direction of citizens needs.
These measures are in the direction of allowing crooks to thrive again and the rest of us survive in these murky waters, and the prospective of loosening against our hard earned savings to the lack of accountability.
As Alan Greenspan said last week “if we lose trust we lose capitalism“, we have lost trust and we cannot trust reporting.
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