What Did Harry Miss?

Harry Markopolos made his second major appearance before Congress, this time in front of the Senate Banking Committee along with two SEC lawyers, who clearly were not up to his professional and intellectual standards. Harry talked about his aborted attempts over a ten year period to get the SEC to listen to the fact that it had taken him about five (5) minutes to figure out Bernie Madoff was a stone fraud. He then described his impressions of lack of professional attributes of SEC staffers to recognize fraud at even an elementary level, much less a career examiner’s level.

He pulled no punches, saying at one point that the SEC “couldn’t find ice cream in a Dairy Queen”, to they “couldn’t find a steak in an Outback (Steakhouse)”. Since his interview will be available electronically soon, there is no need to recite his many statements challenging the conduct and skills of the SEC staff. Suffice it to say that he told the Senate Banking Committee that they should start by firing half the staff, and replace excess lawyers with smart trading and accounting people who should be paid bonuses for finding and busting crooks and frauds.