For a moment yesterday it felt like things were getting back to normal. A bulletin hit the wire saying that Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban was being charged by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading. Even the stock market went up for a good twenty minutes after the wire hit.
But it soon hit me right back - and it hit the market too - that it was indeed the S.E.C. getting back to normal. And normalcy has proven to be a disaster.
It was an immediate signal that instead of focusing on the regulatory failings that have created a global catastrophe, the S.E.C. was focusing on things that do not matter, relatively speaking. People's lives are changing, mostly for the worst, all around the world. Meanwhile, the S.E.C., instead of having every one of its employees focused on how to restore confidence and integrity back into the markets - was having another Martha Stewart moment.
I'm certainly no defender of Mark Cuban or insider trading. I would even say it doesn't surprise me given previous quiet accusations of him shorting stocks and at the same time funding a publication that wrote negative stories about those same stocks. But is that publicized? It even sounds familiar, like the workings of certain major hedge funds who work with certain analysts and journalists. But no word or accusation about anything like that from the SEC.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for years pretended there was no naked short selling problem in our capital markets. Indeed, they have been hardcore backers of a short-term minded and thoughtless hedge fund industry that is now collapsing and taking the world with it. And what does the S.E.C. do about it now? How is it held accountable for the years of providing little to no sufficient oversight over the powerful, greedy and unethical? It does nothing - except file a complaint against a celebrity millionaire on insider trading.
It would be funny if people were not losing their jobs, their homes, and yes, even their lives. Developing countries who depend on the world's support will see drastic cuts in charitable contributions due to this economic meltdown. And why? Because some millionaires and billionaires wanted to make more money by any and all means, while the S.E.C., the Federal Reserve and regulatory agencies purposefully looked away.
What a disgrace. And investors as a collective unit had the same reaction yesterday: an immediate feeling of euphoria that things were getting back to normal. And then we collectively threw up a little in our mouths. Normal!?
