The scariest thing about the report, perhaps, is that it isn't about what happened in the past as much as it's an indicator of what our future looks like. The Madoff Ponzi scheme was a relatively simple scam: all anyone in enforcement ever had to do over the years was to obtain documents showing that wily old Bernie wasn't doing any trading at all. They never did. This is the same agency, slightly tweaked, that we're going to depend on to root out fraud in the mind-bogglingly complex world of over-the-counter derivatives that is even now resuming its old habits.
Michael Hirsh: Madoff Report Indicts Entire Regulatory System
