Eliot Spitzer Calls Out The Half-Assed "Solutions" & Insists On REAL Reform

[kpete]

Spitzer ends this piece by saying, "mistakes I made in my private life now prevent me from participating in these issues as I have in the past." Perhaps. But let's hope that he continues to serve as a public scold, calling out all the half-assed "solutions" and insisting on real reform.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/15/i-told-you-so/

How to Ground The Street
The Former 'Enforcer' On the Best Way to Keep Financial Markets in Check
THE WASHINGTON POST
By Eliot L. Spitzer
Sunday, November 16, 2008; Page B01

First, we must confront head-on the pervasive misunderstanding of what constitutes a "free market." For long stretches of the past 30 years, too many Americans fell prey to the ideology that a free market requires nearly complete deregulation of banks and other financial institutions and a government with a hands-off approach to enforcement. "We can regulate ourselves," the mantra went.

Those of us who raised red flags about this were scoffed at for failing to understand or even believe in "the market." During my tenure as New York state attorney general, my colleagues and I sought to require investment banking analysts to provide their clients with unbiased recommendations, devoid of undisclosed and structural conflicts. But powerful voices with heavily vested interests accused us of meddling in the market.

When my office, along with the Department of Justice, warned that some of American International Group's reinsurance transactions were little more than efforts to create the false impression of extra capital on the company's balance sheet, we were jeered at for attacking one of the nation's great insurance companies, which surely knew how to balance risk and reward.

And when the attorneys general of all 50 states sought to investigate subprime lending, believing that some lending practices might be toxic, we were blocked by a coalition of the major banks and the Bush administration, which invoked a rarely used statute to preempt the states' ability to probe. The administration claimed that it had the situation under control and that our inquiry was unnecessary.

Eliot Spitzer is one of the people best suited to help clean up the mess on Wall Street. After all, he was screaming about where all the bodies were buried back when everyone was in denial, up until the time Michael Garcia took him out for a high-priced hooker.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/15/i-told-you-so/

Here's what he recommends:

Eliot Spitzer is one of the people best suited to help clean up the mess on Wall Street. After all, he was screaming about where all the bodies were buried back when everyone was in denial, up until the time Michael Garcia took him out for a high-priced hooker.

Here's what he recommends:

One of the great advantages U.S. capital markets have enjoyed over the decades has been the view -- held worldwide -- that there was an underlying integrity to the representations market participants made, because the regulatory framework in which they were made was believed to provide genuine oversight. But as we all know, the laws requiring such integrity are meaningless without a government dedicated to enforcing them.

Second, our corporate governance system has failed. We need to reexamine each of the links in its chain.

............

Finally, we need to completely overhaul the federal financial regulatory framework.

more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303634.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[vanderBeth]

1. If it weren't for the "incident", he could've gone far.

[Juche]

2. The incident that came out the same week as the Bear Sterns bailout

And neutralized Spitzer right when the bank failures started. The DoJ really needs to be investigated when Obama takes over.

[malaise]

3. PHEW!!! At last Spitzer speaks

Bravo!!! Expose them Eliot.

[mdmc]

5. yup

[JI7]

4. he should be Attorney General under Obama administration

he could have been .

[many a good man]

7. What's stopping him?

If I remember correctly, all criminal charges against him were dropped. If someone could finesse the PR angle he would become a fantastic public servant heading up DOJ or SEC.

[judasdisney]

15. What's wrong with a backroom unofficial advisory post for Spitzer?

Besides the fact that the White House and Obama and Spitzer are wiretapped by Blackwater's private intelligence firm and Cheney's Sleeper Cells and the Shadow Government?

[RoccoR5955]

6. It's my firm belief that he was framed...

...by the neo-fascist zombie brigade. He was getting ready to expose the whole sham when they bailed out Bear Stearns, and then he was busted. I have more respect for the man after this, because he owned up to it, and took personal responsibility for his victimless crime. Had it been a Rapeublican, it would have been in court for aeons, while the accused denied all charges, and made many appeals, after being convicted.

Spitzer was going for the heart of the beast, and had to pay.

This is what happens when governments legislate people's bedrooms.

[customerserviceguy]

8. You can add Spitzer to the group of people legislating people's bedrooms

He prosecuted prostitution very vigorously. His hypocracy is what makes him unsuitable for higher office, not his choice of bed partner.

PE Obama needs people who inspire trust by integrity. Otherwise, the coming Administration would be no better than the one it is replacing.

[chimpymustgo]

9. His phones were tapped, and he was busted, right after his WaPo op-ed piece about these ciminals.

Your "justice department" at work.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. He was definitley targetted so he would not be able to prosecute those

he knew were behind the activities that led to the bank bubble bursting..

[bvar22]

10. I don't care what Spitzer did in his "private" life:

Eliot Spitzer
for
Attorney General

[gristy]

12. Eliot!

You could have been Attorney General. Damn, I've missed you.

[Tutonic]

13. Yeah the same wall street bankers that took him out are now sneaking up

behind the rest of us--and not in a good way. they won't prosecute Spitzer because he wasn't doing anything that the rest of them don't do. They needed to discredit him with the dumbed down public--and they succeeded.

[McCamy Taylor]

14. Eliot Spitzer should lead the investigation into the mortgage/banking meltdown.

He should be our modern day Ferdinand Pecora. The crimes he uncovers can be referred to the DOJ for prosecution. I do not see him as Attorney General. He would be better focusing on this one problem.