I did some coding and site design work for a financial PR firm in the late ’90s. (I was young and I needed the money.) Back in those days Arthur Levitt, the SEC, et al. focused all their regulatory attention on micro-cap fraud. Think “Boiler Room.” Sure that problem needed attention, but it diverted the investing public from much greater issues … Enron’s collapse alone cost investors ten times the estimated $6 billion take of micro-cap fraud.
Now the Fed wants to tighten subprime lending standards, months after the sector started to collapse on its own. Really bold action, I say.
I suppose some state AG will make a big stink about the subprime mess in the next few years, just as Spitzer did in the wake of the dot-com crash.
