Madoff Scandal Turns Up Heat on Financial Advisers

(NEWSER) - President Obama visited Wall Street’s historic Federal Hall today, on the anniversary of Lehman Brothers' collapse, to make the case for the financial regulatory reforms wending their way through Congress. He spoke of the need for “strong rules of the road” for the financial system. “History cannot be allowed to repeat itself,” he said, calling the effort “the most ambitious overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the Great Depression.” More»

Proposed regulatory fixes don't actually fix much: Nocera

(NEWSER) - President Obama is hardly living up to the hype on fiscal regulatory reform, and he's not matching Franklin Roosevelt, either. When FDR reformed financial regulation, he transformed the industry, cheerfully making enemies in the process. Obama has been timid by comparison, writes Joe Nocera of the New York Times: “The Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam.” More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama today proposed broad new powers for the Federal Reserve and the creation of new national regulator to ensure against another financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal reports. Under the new plan, the Fed would oversee all components of any banking concern, even its foreign affiliates, and Treasury would have the power to take over and restructure any company. Obama called it a “sweeping overhaul.” More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama wants to put the so-called dark markets under control, the New York Times reports, seeking congressional approval to regulate the byzantine world of derivatives trading—which played a large role in the current financial mess. In a letter to lawmakers, Treasury chief Timothy Geithner calls for an oversight system to be run either by the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. More»

Congress questions watchdog's ability to keep up with fraud

(NEWSER) - Congress begins a probe today into why federal regulators who examined Bernie Madoff's investments eight times in 16 years failed to sniff out his decades-long $50 billion Ponzi scheme. Among those in the hot seat is Barack Obama's appointee for SEC chair. Mary Schapiro was involved in several of the fruitless investigations, reports the Wall Street Journal. More»