Frank Rich speculates about a financial investigative similar to the Pecora Commission

[ProSense]

Taxpayers are paying for that P.R., having poured $170 billion-plus into A.I.G. But we still don’t have a transparent, detailed accounting of what was going down last fall when A.I.G. and its trading partners, including Goldman, snared that gargantuan cash transfusion. Perhaps if there had been a thorough post-crash investigative commission emulating the Senate investigation led by Ferdinand Pecora after the crash of 1929, we would now have reforms as thorough as F.D.R.’s. It was because of the Pecora revelations that Glass-Steagall was put in place.

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Well, it's a great idea, but why is this an aside in an article about Obama instead of one calling out the Senate for not doing its job? Not only was this initiated before FDR took office, it was launched by a Republican-controlled Senate.

The Pecora Investigation is the name commonly used to describe the inquiry begun on March 4, 1932 by the United States Senate Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The name refers to the fourth and final chief counsel for the investigation, Ferdinand Pecora.

The investigation was launched by a majority-Republican Senate, under the Banking Committee's chairman, Senator Peter Norbeck. Hearings began on April 11, 1932, but were criticized by Democratic Party members and their supporters as being little more than an attempt by the Republicans to appease the growing demands of an angry American public suffering through the Great Depression. Two chief counsels were fired for ineffectiveness, and a third resigned after the committee refused to give him broad subpoena power. In January 1933, Ferdinand Pecora, an assistant district attorney for New York County was hired to write the final report. Discovering that the investigation was incomplete, Pecora requested permission to hold an additional month of hearings. His expose of the National City Bank (now Citibank) made banner headlines and caused the bank's president to resign. Democrats had won the majority in the Senate, and the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged the new Democratic chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, to let Pecora continue the probe. So actively did Pecora pursue the investigation that his name became publicly identified with it, rather than the committee's chairman.

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This should be a top priority for the Senate.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. The Blankfein Commision

Obama will appoint Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein to chair the commission.

The finding will be that it was all due to credit card debt and non-privatization of some functions, and the recommendation will be that Blankfein be appointed Permanent President of the US, and all first-born children be handed to Goldman for "safekeeping" until we peons finish working off our debts.

[ProSense]

2. Obama is in the Senate? n/t