Title: On the road to financial Shangri-La - what happened?

Authors: Stanley Sporkin

Addresses: 1130 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20036, USA

Abstract: It has been several decades since I served as an Enforcement Director at the SEC, however, the recent turmoil in the financial markets that led to a worldwide recession bear an uncanny resemblance to events in times long gone. The unchecked excesses of bankers and corporate executives today are replays of those earlier escapades. What is different is the scale of their operations, the magnitude of the impact and the impotence of regulatory authorities to stem the hemeoraging. So what went wrong? Why have not we learned from the past? Are we deaf to those many cautions offered in Briloff's writings and my experiences at the SEC?

Keywords: financial crisis; standards; SEC; enforcement; auditing; failures; financial regulation; banking crisis; economic crisis; financial markets; securities markets; accounting.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEA.2013.050586

International Journal of Economics and Accounting, 2013 Vol.4 No.1, pp.22 - 25

Published online: 29 Apr 2014 *

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