"Senators Considering Nomination of Cox"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senators are considering the nomination of President Bush's choice to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rep. Christopher Cox, a free-market conservative who could significantly shift the agency's focus after 2 1/2 years of an activist regulatory stance.

Bush last month chose Cox, a California Republican who has taken pro-business positions, to lead the SEC after the surprise resignation of Chairman William Donaldson, whom Bush had installed to help restore confidence in a stock market shaken by corporate scandals in 2002.

Business interests, which had chafed at Donaldson's regulatory activism and pressed the White House to replace him with someone friendlier to them, have welcomed Cox's nomination. Some investor advocates and union leaders have urged senators to reject him, saying he would disregard investors' interests and protections.

Cox, 52, now chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is a former corporate lawyer who has been in Congress for 16 years. He is expected to win Senate approval. At a confirmation hearing for him Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee also was considering the nominations of Roel Campos and Annette Nazareth to fill the two Democratic seats on the five-member SEC.

<snip>

Cox is the first member of Congress to be nominated to head the 70-year-old SEC. That puts him, if he is confirmed, in the unusual position of potentially regulating companies that donated money to his campaigns.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050726/D8BIS5UO0.html

[natrat]

1. yea act like you give a shit about investors for a year or two

then let the crooks back in

[Mass]

2. Insightful article on Cox.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9991

Bubblehead
Californian Chris Cox, the president’s choice to reverse the reforms at the SEC, could be Bush’s single most destructive regulatory appointee.

By Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 08.01.05

Most economists expect something bad to happen to the U.S. economy sometime this decade, due to the deficit and debt overhang, the trade imbalance, the dependence on foreign borrowing, the sundry asset bubbles, and more. When the history of the next crash is written, President Bush’s appointment of California Republican Congressman Christopher Cox to chair the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during this fragile era will deserve its own chapter.

If confirmed, as he almost surely will be, Cox could very well be Bush’s single most destructive regulatory appointee. Financial markets are one of the very few areas where even laissez-faire types concede that a measure of regulation is necessary. But Cox is a true believer who imagines that financial markets can police themselves. He has been a relentless foe of even the modest regulation enacted by the outgoing Republican SEC chairman, William Donaldson. The two other Republican commissioners are ideological clones of Cox, who will have a working majority to do whatever he wants. It is widely expected that he will preside over the evisceration of the commission. Says a former commissioner, “This is the worst thing to happen in the SEC’s 70-year history.”

(you have to subscribe to a free trial to see the end, but it is worth it)

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Thanks for posting this. Scary stuff!

[Robbien]

4. Note that all the talk is about protecting investors

and protecting companies from regulations.

Notice who is missing from that list.

John Q Public falls off the radar once again in this new world of ours.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Yep. It's insane!

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Concerned kick