Danny Schechter - ColdType

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What questions does the commission have to ask? How
about putting all the 7 and 8 figure executives under oath
and ask them if they were really too dumb to see an $8 trillion
housing bubble. For a follow-up, the commission can ask
them what exactly they do to earn those multi-million dollar
paychecks. Those questions should make for some very
informative testimony.
Unfortunately, it is more likely that the commission will get
buried in obscure details of collateralized debt obligations
and credit default swaps. That would be a serious distraction
from the real story and a waste of the taxpayers’ money.
In a review on the Naked Capitalism blog of Pecora’s book
Wall Street Under Oath, “Doctor Rx” explains the Commission’s
role:
Roosevelt felt he needed an energized public to push through
financial reforms, and Pecora delivered the goods. The Pecora
Investigation is given a great deal of credit for creating the
momentum for the signature legislation between 1933 and
1935 that helped save Wall Street from its own excesses
In his book, Pecora himself wrote:
… if you now hearken to the oracles of The Street, you will
hear now and then that the money-changers have been
much maligned. You will be told that a whole group of highminded
men, innocent of social or economic wrongdoing,
were expelled from the temple because of the excesses of a
few. You will be assured that they had nothing to do with the
misfortunes that overtook the country in 1929-33; that they
were simply scapegoats, sacrificed on the altar of unreasoning
public opinion to satisfy the wrath of a howling mob
blindly seeking victims…. These disingenuous protestations
are, in the crisp legal phrase, “without merit.”
He also issued a warning that couldn’t be more relevant:
… It is certainly well that Wall Street now professes repentance.
But it would be most unwise, nevertheless, to under-