What is the current political climate in wake of the 2001 corporate scandals?
As it turns out, the corporate accounting scandals of 2001 were the tip of the iceberg in terms of the failure of the regulatory structure to adequately protect Americans and investors from economic hardship. The packaging of housing debt based on non-existent equity into securities which ultimately became worthless has caused a world wide economic collapse. In addition, there have been more cases of blatant fraud which escaped timely regulatory detection. The most notable case involved Bernard Madoff, a former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange who was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme that has been called the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person. On March 12, 2009, Madoff pled guilty to an 11-count criminal complaint, admitting to defrauding thousands of investors. Federal prosecutors estimated client losses, which included fabricated gains, of almost $65 billion. Some involved in the case as well as other unrelated observers have opined that
