Rascals and would-be rascals, be warned. Attorney General Eric Holder, with President Obama's direction, will now lead a massive ongoing investigation of crimes that helped to bring about the nation's deep financial crisis, and to behavior that might lead to problems in the future. It's a matter, Holder indicates, of seeing to it that Wall Street understands it needs to serve Main Street.
Would that such a task force had been formed during the Clinton and Bush administrations, when the footloose ways of mortgage lenders, insider traders, Ponzi scheme artists and out-and-out thieves were setting the stage for the current recession.
The task force to be led by Holder will involve the FBI, of course, which already is investigating over 2,000 instances of alleged mortgage fraud and is looking into the activities of some 38 major corporations. State attorneys general will be participating in the task force as well, and additional staff in U.S. Attorneys' offices will focus on financial fraud.
Holder pretty much summed up the wide-ranging effort this way, as reported by McClatchy Newspapers: "Unscrupulous executives, Ponzi scheme operators and common criminals alike have targeted the pocketbooks and retirement accounts of middle-class Americans, and in many cases, devastated entire families' futures. We will not allow these actions to go unpunished."
While the financial meltdown didn't happen overnight and can't be blamed on a single aspect of the country's complex (and as it turned out, entirely too free-wheeling) financial system, the American people want to see those responsible brought to account.
For too long, it seems nobody was watching things closely at all, or at least that those in places such as the Securities and Exchange Commission were under the impression that the responsibility for oversight was somewhere else.
The Obama administration has been frustrated in some of its attempts to streamline regulation and to draw clearer lines of authority and responsibility. Federal officials cannot rest in those efforts.
The creation of this task force will undoubtedly prompt some catcalls from conservative cynics who believe either that the financial industry is not in need of more regulation or that any attempt at stronger oversight is a waste of time. Recent history has proved the first view dead wrong, and the painful experiences of people who have had their savings wiped out or nearly so by this economic crisis testify to the fact that on the second view, more effort on regulation is indeed time well spent.
