"While I have a lot of respect for the SEC's increased crackdown on financial wrongdoing"
Really? I honestly find it hard to imagine how they could possibly do less in terms of enforcement. There appears to have been huge amounts of fraud going on during both the bubble of the late 90's and the more recent crisis. The the best the SEC has managed is to nab a few people for insider trading.
The SEC could certainly do (much) more, but I'm merely claiming that they seem to be improving. Most of the articles I've read about Mary Schapiro's recent retirement conclude that she left the SEC in a better state than she found it. For example, from [1]:
She inherited a mess at the S.E.C. Critics contended that Christopher Cox, her predecessor, left an agency with low morale that was ill-prepared to cope with the financial crisis... Ms. Schapiro directed much of her early attention on the beleaguered enforcement unit... Over the last two years, the unit has filed a record number of actions and brought 129 cases against people and firms tied to the crisis.
Have they even investigated the selective disclosure that was widely reported to have gone on during the facebook fiasco? Someone should have been charged for that.
It still hasn't been very long since Facebook's IPO, I expect investigations like that take longer than a few months. Patience is virtue, especially when dealing with cases like the Facebook IPO.
Really? I honestly find it hard to imagine how they could possibly do less in terms of enforcement. There appears to have been huge amounts of fraud going on during both the bubble of the late 90's and the more recent crisis. The the best the SEC has managed is to nab a few people for insider trading.