Departing SEC official warns of coming “winter” for US capital markets
The rise of Trump to the presidency of the US and his efforts to construct a fascistic dictatorship represent the violent realignment of the political superstructure to more openly and directly express the domination of the American economy and increasingly all aspects of life by a financial oligarchy.
In its mode of existence, its social being, this oligarchy, based on the endless accumulation of wealth through stock market speculation, financial market operations and parasitism, demands the abolition of all remaining restrictions on its activity.
One of the expressions of this process, which derives not from the personal characteristics of the individuals involved but from the objective logic of the system they head, is the evisceration of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the regulatory authority of the stock market.
The extent of this gutting operation was highlighted in a speech last week by Caroline Crenshaw upon her impending exit from the SEC. She first referred to the dismantling of the SEC block by block back in May and expanded on this assessment in her latest remarks.
Summing up what she called the “chaos” of the past year, Crenshaw said: “The appetite to deregulate has been rapacious; the analysis of the costs and benefits of our policies has been non-existent; and the repercussions… could be dire.”
She noted that one of the pervasive trends was “moving markets out of the light into darkness” and the Commission, on lessening the “industry’s perceived burdens,” was reducing transparency.
The Commission had been “shrouding its policymaking in darkness, shunning public comments and instead relying on hidden voices to drive its agenda.”
She took aim at changes in the regulatory framework which have allowed private capital access to “Main Street investors’ pockets, including their retirement funds,” exposing them to more risky investments that were designed for the major players in financial markets.
To justify this “irresponsible departure” from the foundation of securities laws a lot of “buzz words” were being used including “freedom, diversification, democratisation.”
“Call it what you will, at bottom it’s risky and reckless,” she said.
“Unleashing the private markets’ insatiable hunger for capital on retail investors’ wallets will come back to bite regulators—but not before Main Street Americans’ savings have been looted.”
She drew attention to the way in which enforcement actions were being dismissed left, right and centre. The SEC was bringing fewer enforcement actions and civil financial penalties were “purposely lower.”
“The purveyors of massive white-collar fraud are being pardoned or having their sentences commuted by the president, leading the Commission in many cases to drop its parallel litigations as an ‘exercise of discretion.’”
Crenshaw presented her remarks within the framework of what has functioned as the prevailing official mythology over many decades—that the SEC functions to ensure that the financial system and the stock market is a “system for everyone, and not for any special interest or market participant.”
The SEC was established in 1934 by the Roosevelt administration in response to the stock market crash of 1929. But from the outset it was clear that the SEC, while imposing some controls, was no inherent threat to the giants of Wall Street.
Its first chairman was Joseph Kennedy, father of the future president, John Kennedy. He was not a regulator—far from it. He had made his money in the very kind of speculation and dubious practices which the SEC was set up to curb. He was also accused during the prohibition era of being a bootlegger, though no charges were ever brought.
Over its history, the SEC has alternated between periods of lighter and stricter enforcement.
During the Clinton administration, the regulations which had been introduced under the New Deal of Roosevelt were largely scrapped culminating in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 in 1999.
The aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis saw a marked shift in the operation of the SEC under the Obama administration. Prosecutions were increasingly replaced by financial settlements and the “revolving door” through which individuals passed back and forth between Wall Street and the SEC was swung open with increasing frequency.
Most significantly, even though investigations, including a major report prepared for the US Senate, revealed that some of the biggest finance houses had engaged in criminal activity leading to the crash of 2008, not a single executive was charged, let alone convicted and jailed. Banks were provided with bailouts on the basis they were too big to fail while executives were considered too important to jail.
The activities of SEC chair Gary Gensler, appointed by the Biden administration, were aimed at trying to reintroduce some tightening of regulation after the first Trump administration but largely failed as a result of legal action.
The most outstanding example was his attempt to bring the crypto market under SEC control because Gensler regarded it as a threat to the stability of the financial system. A legal action, however, forced him to approve an Exchange-Traded Fund in Bitcoin.
The trends, which began under Obama, continued and deepened under the first Trump administration and have reached new depths in the first year of his second.
For years the SEC, like all the regulatory institutions of capitalism, operated behind a kind of mask, promoting itself as the guardian of the public interest. It has become increasingly tattered and frayed over the past decade and a half but today the remnants are being torn off.
In her final address as a member of the SEC Crenshaw issued some sharp warnings as to where this was leading.
The very core of the intricate market structure was “under attack” and, instead of safeguarding markets for investors to fund their retirements in safe and sustainable ways, they were starting to look like casinos. “The problem with casinos, of course, is that in the long run the house always wins.”
She noted that she would not be alone in “analogising the trend toward deregulation in the current environment to the period prior to the stock market crash of 1929.”
Staff numbers at the SEC were down by as much as 20 percent with the loss of expert knowledge of how to deal with tumult.
“Of late, we have frequently been told that today is a ‘new day’ at the Commission. But anyone aware of our place in the calendar knows that with each successive day the nights grow longer. I fear that the darkest depths of winter still lie ahead for America’s capital markets.”
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