Although mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past…
… I feel I need to make myself heard all the same.
Eliot L. Spitzer was governor of New York from 2007-08 and state attorney general from 1999-2006.
Extracts:
A market doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Rather, a market is a product of laws, rules and enforcement. It needs transparency, capital requirements and fidelity to fiduciary duty. The alternative, as we are seeing, is anarchy.
… our corporate governance system has failed. We need to reexamine each of the links in its chain. Boards of directors, compensation and audit committees, the trio of facilitators (lawyers, investment bankers and auditors) whose job it is to create the impression of legal compliance, and shareholders themselves — all abdicated their responsibilities.
…we need to completely overhaul the federal financial regulatory framework.
Let’s leave aside the ideological hesitancy that has long hamstrung regulatory agencies. Today’s balkanized regulatory framework for financial services no longer matches in any way the needs of a fully integrated global financial system. The divisions of the past — commercial banking vs. investment banking vs. insurance vs. hedge funds vs. private equity — have become distinctions without a difference. But these old boxes and formalities still determine how entities are viewed and regulated. It should surprise nobody that capital found the crevices in the regulatory framework. That is what capital is paid to do.
Related link:
“These days I prefer hanging out with my kids” – Time Out
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