SEC disappointments

It was bad enough that the SEC bungled the mortgage activity oversight in the mid 2000s.  Their willingness to allow their regulated companies to "self regulate" and the adoption of the same VaR model that many financial companies unfortunately relied on - to the detriment of our economy - surely set off alarm bells.  But, to give them a very generous benefit of the doubt, absent collusion it is likely that they could not have foreseen the depth of the calamity that ensued.

Now, however, Bloomberg News tells us the agency has been destroying documents related to investigations, including perhaps the Madoff debacle.  And not only early stage investigation documents but more developed cases in which the revolving door between the SEC and Wall Street was implicated.

What is the remedy for a broken, corrupt, and/or inept culture?  How much more damage can be done to our confidence in those who are supposed to be handling oversight?  Who can analyze it with clear-eyed urgency and speak the truth?

Now would be long past time to act.