October 18, 2008

Is SEC Chariman Chris Cox the single most incompetent and destructive public official of all time?

Michael Brown had this one sewn up, but then along came Chris Cox.

The exact wrong man for the exact wrong job at the exact wrong time. To the benefit of Michael Perry, Angelo Mozilo, Stanley O'Neal, Dick Fuld and all the rest.

If you could jail someone for pure incompetence, Chris Cox would be the first thrown in the clink.

History will be brutal when it comes to Chris Cox. And to George Bush and the US Congress, who allowed this travesty to continue.

I have no idea what's driving Cox. Maybe he got a sweetheart loan from Mozilo? Maybe he's short he market? Maybe he hates America? Maybe he's part of al-Qaeda? Whatever it is, it's bewildering. And it's sick.

Here's a good expose in Bloomberg for starters. The damage has been done, but I would like to see him testify under oath.

The Invisible Man



a.creampuff said...

All the animals left the barn, the barn caught fire, burned to a smoldering pile of cinders, a tornado blew the cinders away, and the entire farm fell down a sinkhole.

But we have XLRB!

keyser soze said...

I hope everyone watched Cramer, Tuesday, Oct. 14...as he painstakingly walked us through the hedge fund bear raids on the financials this year.

He's been 'truthin' ever since the Steel debacle.

Anonymous said...

Remember where he's from.

He's a true-blue kool-aid swilling Kuldlowite believer: House Republican. You know, the "greeted as liberators" crowd. "Trickle-down". Freedom fries, deregulation and all that. Now I see it's being morphed to "It's all Clinton's and those damn minorities' fault!"

And they will still pump the same rank BS in the WSJ editorials and talkradio.

Even Ben Stein has slowly been waking up being run over by the clue train.

But you know they'll be back. Unrepentant.

As I think Talleyrand said of the Bourbons---after the French Revolution:

They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.

Anonymous said...


That honor goes to the dishonoable and feloniously incompetent


Son of George HW Bush.

I wonder if Hitler had any sons he was proud of?

Aaron Krowne said...

I think the answer is "yes".... unless he's just doing what he was supposed to do.

His legacy is capped by the utterly retarded short-selling ban, which was engineered to protect his banking buddies but ended up making hedging impossible, thus kicking a good portion of hedge funds out of the market all at once, crashing it and making it much more volatile.

guy n. cognito said...

write the SEC's OIG, voice your complaint.


or you could try their alt email:


Anonymous said...

FIRE HIM!!!!!!

opps, maybe we shouldn't be so brash and think more about his feelings.

Glenna said...

He is guilty of cronyism. Do you think Gearge Bush and Dick Cheney would appoint someone who isn't! Just like Bernanke, Cox's job was not to put all American's interest first, just the wealthy white ones!

Anonymous said...

The vast majority of the financial problems are directly related to this single act from the SEC which exempted these 5 companies from following previous regulation:

Anonymous said...

Remember, members of the lynching party, that the final stage of a bubble bursting is punishment of the innocent.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here is one of Cox's supposed sins and his defense:

A report by the SEC inspector general found that the SEC failed in its oversight of Bear Stearns. Cox said that the CSE program (which started in 2004) for large investment bank holding companies was "fundamentally flawed" because it was voluntary, and he shut it down.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did not give the SEC the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies. The CSE program was proven to be ineffective and did not offer SEC oversight authority; and therefore, leaving investors vulnerable to regulatory gaps such as this one and of those found in a $60 trillion market of Credit Default Swaps or CDS. Currently, the CDS market remains unregulated. Cox has noted that "[neither] the SEC nor any regulator has authority even to require minimum disclosure".

Adam "The Opaque Hand" Smith said...

Yeah, Cox takes the cake for allowing the meme to continue that the price drops in financial stocks happened BECAUSE of short sellers.

What morons! You don't suppose a stock might drop, if the company truly WAS insolvent and this became public knowledge? Perhaps people realized the king was not wearing any clothes, as pointed out by the brave child?

In case the critics didn't notice, there WAS a ban on short sales on the financial stocks, and the prices of these stocks managed to DROP on their OWN, without any effect from short-sellers or market intervention from the gov't!

But once the ban was lifted, we once again saw the chant to block short sellers, led by the likes of Cramer! What morons! Short selling has been part of trading for 400 years, viewed as a legit approach for hedging, etc. Look at "Reminiscenses of a stock operator" and you'll see it's been part of trading on Wall St. from the 1800's.

Cramer has NO RESPECT from me, as it took him HOW LONG to admit to his viewers that we were in a bear market? And now that he's looking to sell, the guys I look to are starting to dip their toes in? He's the ultimate contrarian indicator, a real doofus.

No, guys like Phil Grande are the real deal: I've seen his portfolio holdings, and he knows what he's talking about.

Anonymous said...

Lets see, bush a republiban, had both houses of congress from 2000-2006 at his disposal. Exactly the same timeframe that the bush built scheitt sandwich was built.

Therefore, Bush was the chief criminal and thief, all others are secondary. Remember, the buck stops and starts at the top. bush should do the respectful deed and simply fall on his sword for starters.

Then the healing could start.

Lost Cause said...

He is the former representative of Newport Coast, so there is no doubt about the idiocy of Scottsdale sucking Frank and Chris Cox.

Anonymous said...

What's in a name?

Cash and Carry
Dick Fold

The Housing Bubble as the Rake's Progress.

The OC said...

As a long time OC resident, in Cox' (former) Congressional District in South OC (now held by another dope -- John Campbell) -- this is how it works: Lifetime/life-long toe-hold in the Orange County GOP, basically doing nothing other than brown-nosing those with power, and destroying newcomers with ideas and real ability. The entitlement mentality allows the promotions of these dopes to continue. For the most part, the Chris Cox' of the world are way in over their heads. It's pretty amazing, though that Cox was appointed SEC Chairman, because he never had any background in finance. OC is a cesspool of GOP entitlement, corruption and mendacity.

Anonymous said...

Why blame Chris Cox. George Bush appointed a political hack instead of a finance expert. I'm sure his job description was to look the other way and get the government off wall street's back (all that republican deregulation BS).

Where does the buck stop?

Anonymous said...

dude u left-wing hack, ever heard of Barney Frank or Chris Dodd?