Veteran Bloomberg reporter Susan Antilla wonders in her latest column whether Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Mary Schapiro is the right person to have at the helm of the SEC.
Back in 2006, Schapiro was the head of the National Association of Securities Dealers when the organization decided to merge its regulatory functions with the NYSE to create Finra -- the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Now a pair of Finra-member firms are suing Finra and Schapiro, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, misleading statements and unjust enrichment.
You can read the details in Antilla's story, where she notes that "Her history and two pending lawsuits, though, raise an important question for investors: Is the woman who oversees the U.S. financial markets someone willing to fudge the facts to get things done?"
But as interesting all this stuff is, the truth is that there are a ton of other reasons that Schapiro was a poor choice to head the SEC.
Back in January, veteran journalist Gary Weiss called Schapiro's appointment an "appalling endorsement of the status quo. " He argued that "The chances of Schapiro shaking things up in the securities industry -- instituting real, meaningful, desperately desired change -- are about the same as the chances you can make a black bear curtsy and serve tea. This is a terribly disappointing selection."
Mary Schapiro is a career bureaucrat who ran the self-regulatory apparatus that pretty clearly failed to effectively regulate the financial services industry. For all its tough talk, the Obama administration has been too tightly connected with Wall Street -- and taking this scandal as an opportunity to give her the boot would provide a great opportunity to bring in a serious regulator.
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