SEC Said to Hire Goldman’s Storch for Enforcement Job

[AllentownJake]

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission hired Adam Storch, a 29-year-old former employee in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s business intelligence unit, as the enforcement division’s first chief operating officer, according to people familiar with the decision.

The COO, who started Oct. 13, has “a great deal of background” in technology and managing processes and the pace of work, Robert Khuzami, head of enforcement, said yesterday in Washington. Storch, who worked since 2004 in a unit at Goldman Sachs that reviewed contracts and transactions for signs of fraud, will be charged with making the unit more efficient. Storch, reached by telephone at the SEC, declined to comment.

Khuzami announced the position in August as part of the unit’s biggest overhaul in three decades. He is taking steps to add front-line investigators, speed inquiries and create specialized units after the agency was faulted for missing Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion fraud.

Storch holds degrees in accounting and finance from the State University of New York at Buffalo and studied at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He has certifications in accounting, fraud examination and auditing.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6ItnK32Cl6Y

It continues....

[QC]

1. Is there anyone in the Obama administration who *didn't* work for Goldman Sachs at some point?

This is getting to be worse than Cheney and Halliburton.

[AllentownJake]

3. Yes it is rather disturbing

Particularly in light of Matt Taibbi's investigative journalism on their role in the crisis.

[thunder rising]

9. Since he'll be wanting to go back into to industry what are the chances of real reform?

[QC]

10. Exactly. No need to bite the hand

that is going to feed him very, very well for the rest of his days.

[kenny blankenship]

2. Always more room for another fox in this henhouse.

[msongs]

4. change you can believe in - payback for the campaign assitance? nt

[AllentownJake]

5. Possibly

The President doesn't seem to be that concerned about Wall Street regulations.

[xchrom]

6. oy

:eyes: this isn't even ironic any more.

[AllentownJake]

8. No

and it becomes harder and harder to defend the President everyday.

[QC]

24. It is indeed hard to defend the indefensible. n/t

[Subdivisions]

7. FUCK GOLDMAN SACHS!!! n/t

[rucky]

11. In other news: Dracula is holding a blood drive.

[AllentownJake]

12. Delete

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. A 29 year old COO?

I am sure that he will show leadership and not bend to the ways of those who seek to influence him given his 'extensive experience'.

[AllentownJake]

14. At 29

As pointed out up thread, he is going to want to move back into the industry at some point in time. Now how aggressive do you think he will be if he knows he has a future job in the industry if he plays it cool.

[Ruby the Liberal]

33. Exactly. nt

[notadmblnd]

15. so the guy that was supposed to catch fraud at GS is now supposed to do it for the GVMT?

Sounds to me like he didn't do such a hot job to begin with. And how at 29, with less than 10 years experience, does one land a job like this?

[AllentownJake]

16. Well the SEC is under the jurisdiction of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

Do I need to elaborate much more from there.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

26. I thought the SEC was independent?

[AllentownJake]

27. You are correct

My mistake, it is linked on the Treasury website.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

28. As such, this particular SEC decision has nothing to do with Obama.

Obama can only appoint commissioners as their terms expire. This is why he has only appointed one commissioner so far. Therefore, of the 5 members of the SEC, 4 are Bush appointees.

[AllentownJake]

29. I stand corrected

There are 3 republicans and 2 Democrats on the commission right now.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

31. That's correct. Maybe you should make a note of it in your OP since it seems like everyone is

reading this to be Obama's appointment.

[AllentownJake]

32. Too late to correct

[QC]

17. Belong to a business sector that gave the president $20,000,000. n/t

[Bonhomme Richard]

18. They ought to hire that guy who warned the fed...........

about the Madoff fraud.

[AllentownJake]

19. That guy is probably unemployed

The government is not interested in investigating Wall Street fraud. They weren't under Bush, they aren't under President Obama.

[JackRiddler]

30. His name is Markopoulos and he warned the SEC repeatedly (also the WSJ, who didn't publish).

[Ilsa]

20. Adam, not Larry?

But Larry was so much more fun!

[tk2kewl]

21. yeesh

[lonestarnot]

22. Did you leave out a C?

[Canuckistanian]

23. Is Goldman Sachs a cult or something?

They seem to have an uncanny ability to insert their former employees in high financial places.

Who in turn..... hire more GS employees.

[AllentownJake]

25. More like the Mafia

A group of people organized to make as much money as possible, in any way possible.

[ipaint]

34. Just like the mafia

"In October of last year, a Goldman Sachs Vice President, Neel Kashkari, was named by former Goldman CEO and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Pauslon to oversee the$700 billion TARP bailout. In January of this year, Tim Geithner hired a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, to be his top aide and Chief of Staff. In March, President Obama nominated Goldman Sachs executive Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures markets, even though (or "because") Gensler confessed to lax regulation during the Clinton administration over the very derivative instruments that caused the financial crisis. In April, Goldman hired as its top lobbyist Michael Paese, the top aide to Rep. Barney Frank on the House Financial Services Committee which Frank chairs.

According to ABC News in October, 2008, Goldman "spent more than $43 million dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to cultivate friends and buy influence in Washington, D.C. since 1989" and their "bankers have been the country's top political campaign contributors this year." "They are almost in a class by themselves," said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director for the Center for Responsive Politics. As Michael Moore has been pointing out, Goldman was the number one source of funding for the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. The bailout of AIG -- which resulted in massive federal government monies to Goldman -- was engineered at a meeting between Paulson, Geithner and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Last year, Goldman paid top Obama economics adviser Larry Summers $135,000 for a one-day visit to Goldman.

Recently obtained calenders from Geithner reveal that "Goldman, Citi and JPMorgan can get Geithner on the phone several times a day if necessary, giving them an unmatched opportunity to influence policy" and "Geithner's contacts with Blankfein alone outnumber his contacts with Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee." Documents obtained by The New York Times relating to Geithner's work before becoming Treasury Secretary "show[] that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions."

...So the most profitable quarter Goldman Sachs ever had in its history was the second quarter of 2009 -- just a few months after massive amounts of taxpayer money were transferred to them and their counter-parties in order to prop up their business, while several of its key competitors were allowed to die. The second-most profitable quarter it ever had in its history was the third quarter of 2009. In his seminal article in The Atlantic earlier this year, former IMF economist and current MIT Professor Simon Johnson warned (just like former IMF official Lachman did) that, for deeply corrupt oligarchies in which the unrestrained power and recklessness of the oligarchs spawn a financial crisis, this is what happens: "at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government . . . Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/