More Weak Ends For Bernies

Just as the woefully under-funded and understaffed SEC is trying to get its arms around high-speed trading and its effects on markets, Congress votes to fund it, and The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, at a level guaranteed to keep them in the Stone Age.  So we're back to heavy reliance on the industry's self-regulatory organizations to provide oversight; what could possibly go wrong? Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America, tells the Financial Times:  “The SEC situation is bad, but the CFTC situation is criminal.”
Future Bernie Madoffs must be feeling smug. As Dennis Kelleher,  president of Better Markets, a Washington, D.C.,-based investor advocacy group, told Fox Business News:  "Slashing that fund is not only wrong, it’s stupid. Only Wall Street benefits from not properly funding the SEC. Any other claim or excuse is phony.” -- B.B.