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We're used to that now. It was more exciting back then.
So why hasn't Congress unleashed another Pecora? Maybe the Democrats will (Spitzer seems to be applying), though there are reasons to be skeptical. Because of the New Deal reforms (for which Pecora, to be fair, gets some credit), the activities of finance, while infinitely more complex, are also more visible than in the '30s. Books by the dozen are being cranked out, and every week now it seems someone tries out a section, like Joe Nocera's solid "Risk Management" article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. We know roughly what happened; and more seaminess of the Madoffian school will undoubtedly emerge, particularly the kind of crass venality that enlivens a congressional hearing. But there are several problems for folks in Congress before they recruit a Pecora clone. First, the government today is much larger and more ubiquitous than in the '30s. Any investigation of Wall Street is by definition an investigation of Washington. Does Congress or the White House (old and new) really want to revisit Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Who were the Wall Street mavens talking to while they were seeking to loosen leverage? Two, finance has been effectively democratized. Wall Street is not just about fat cats hoarding cash -- the image from the '30 amazingly persists -- it's about a system reaching from Broad and Wall into every suburb in America. It was easy to keep the mass of Americans out of the Pecora hearings. It won't be so easy this time, not that someone leaking ambition won't try. Was there criminality? Undoubtedly. And sleaze. And hypocrisy. And scandal. But the larger problems were systemic, and that's grindingly dull to a population already gorged on wrongdoing and accustomed to many of the grandstanding tactics Pecora pioneered. By seeking a new Pecora, Chernow seems to be saying that we need bread and circuses to satiate a "public aching for retribution." Maybe that's always the case in our benighted democracy. But don't be confused: A new Pecora, like the old, may give us plump targets for our wrath, but won't bring us any closer to enlightenment. - Robert Teitelman See Chernow's column from The New York Times Robert Teitelman is the editor in chief of The Deal. CategoriesComments
From: Roger Moore,
People should be aware that the country is getting ready for a "FDR moment," and the new for a new Pecora Commission is painfully obvious to all who could see, as Paul Volcker commented on Charlie Rose some months back, to paraphrase, "the country has too many financial engineers and not enough civil engineers.
Posted on:
January 15, 2009 11:34 AM
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In Tuesday's New York Times, the estimable Ron Chernow 
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What a load of drivel! You should know better.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/05/news/newsmakers/parloff_payback.fortune/index.htm