Matt Taibbi on Graft & Corruption on Wall Street

The idea that the SEC would quash investigation and completely obliterate the record should be a crime. Taibbi is onto something big. The financial regulation of Wall Street is corrupt and appalling. I could understand that under George Bush and the Republicans, the party of corporate greed and billionaire demanding endless tax cuts. I don't understand Obama, who ran as a Democrat, has extended this seedy, corrupt, and illegal "system" of financial regulation. There needs to be a clean sweep of the corruption in Washington DC, otherwise the US will never recover from the last ten years of endless bubbles and corporate crime.

Here is Matt Taibbi on Keith Olbermann's show:



Here's a post by Matt Taibbi on this story:

Just a quick note about the "Shredded Justice" story, as I’ve had a couple of questions about some of the SEC’s responses to the story.

Several readers pointed to this story in which SEC spokesman John Nester said this:

"We do keep records of our MUI's and they're available to our investigators to learn about previous work on matters that have been reviewed."

Just so readers understand, the SEC in my communications with them on this story drew a distinction between the words records and documents. According to the SEC, they do maintain "records" of Matters Under Inquiry, and by that they appear to mean the line-item entries of the sort Darcy Flynn forwarded to members of congress, an example of which might be:

Party	MUI #	Open	Close	Issue
Wells Fargo	MSF-03174	8/24/07	10/23/07	Fraud /Issuer Disc.

So they keep that "record." On the other hand, any documents obtained in connection with the MUI would have been disposed of. So any documents gathered during the brief life of that preliminary investigation – any evidence gathered – would have been tossed. Just wanted readers to be aware and not be confused by any quotes in which the SEC claims it does, in fact, keep "records."

A crime is a crime is a crime. Obama is obstructing justice by allowing the SEC to ignore crimes, and worse, destroy the evidence of the crime.

Worse, Obama has come out against whistle-blowers. He claims he is for "transparent" government, but he is doing everything possible to hide the criminals and obfuscate the truth.

Be clear, Obama is far better than George Bush and the Republicans, but he is no friend of the bottom 90% of the population. He is a friend of Wall Street and billionaires. He isn't a friend of the middle class and the working class or the disenfranchised class at the very bottom. He is far more comfortable and happy backslapping and partying with the super-rich than with real people with real needs.

Update 2011aug26: Here is a The Leonard Lopate Show of WYNC interviewing Matt Taibbi about this Rolling Stone magazine article. Give it a listen...



Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi discusses his latest article, “Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?” For the past two decades, according to a whistle-blower at the SEC who recently came forward to Congress, the agency has been systematically destroying records of its preliminary investigations once they are closed.