hard heads soft hearts |
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a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists. mobile
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Friday, June 14, 2002
Earlier this year all the media talking heads went into spasms of outrage over Clinton's Marc Rich pardon, how disgusting it was, and how it proved that Clinton was indeed a Very Bad Man. Well, read these two articles, and then tell me whether or not these two scandals outweigh Marc Rich by several (hundred) orders of magnitude? "One of the Bush administration’s first moves, as noted here at the time, was to rein back – but not entirely squelch – the Clinton administration’s efforts to crack down on off-shore tax havens. Now Treasury Secretary O’Neill has cut a deal with one of the most notorious tax havens of them all, the Cayman Islands. The deal gives tax cheats just 25 months to move their assets elsewhere before the IRS swoops in. And the deal apparently assures that any trail of wrongdoing prior to 2004 will be permanently sealed from view, so no one’s likely to get into too much trouble for whatever they’ve done thus far in the Caymans. . ." "The 25-month delay gives tax cheats ample time to more their money to another tax haven, said Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who specializes in financial frauds. “They have written this in a way so that the people who have been violating the law can get themselves out from under the mess by moving to another jurisdiction where there is no agreement,” Mr. Blum said. “This is simply astonishing" "Harvey Pitt is not a household name. Until recently, the only people who regularly came across him were those in scrapes with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). For such individuals, however, Pitt was the man to see. He was considered the sharpest securities lawyer in the country, and while not everybody could afford his fees, those who could were generally pleased with the results. When the SEC charged Ivan Boesky with insider trading, he hired Pitt, who engineered a lighter-then-expected sentence. Over the decades, Pitt built an impressive roster of similarly well-heeled clients who stood accused by the SEC of securities fraud, misstating their finances, other pecuniary offenses. And he has put his persuasive talents to work not just for individuals but for large economic interests who do business with the SEC--on whose behalf he has prowled the corridors of Washington as a super-lobbyist. Most of the time, Pitt fought the SEC to a draw, or better. But in August, Pitt entered a new line of work. The bad news for those having difficulties with the SEC is that they can no longer hire Pitt to defend their interests. The good news--and, taking all things into account, it vastly outweighs the bad--is that Pitt is now chairman of the SEC. Pitt, in other words, heads the agency charged with rooting out financial crime--which is roughly the equivalent of making Johnnie Cochran head of the FBI" ". . .Pitt has already replaced the top staff of the agency's critical corporate-finance division--an unusual move at the SEC, where the previous two chairmen left the staffs they inherited in place--and installed people who, like him, have a background representing the industries the SEC regulates. In October the Commission instituted an amnesty policy, whereby firms accused of violations could turn themselves in and receive little or no punishment. "I think that there have been instances where what the agency has done is focus more on an after-the-fact casting of blame and aspersion than in figuring out how to protect investors," he told the Post. "We aren't going to play gotcha." Imagine if other law enforcement agencies took this view" "Swallowing camels and straining at gnats" I think it's called. I know it's not of the magnitude of the War on Terrorism, just several hundred billion dollars, but still. . .they shouldn't be able to get away with this, should they? |