Courtesy of Larry Doyle.
If bulls and bears dominate the landscape on Wall Street, there is little doubt that pigs rule the roost in Washington.
I know I am stating the obvious with that assertion but a recent report detailing the ongoing nightmare for those who invested money in Stanford Financial provides more evidence that Washington continues to resemble little more than a sty these days.
Let’s navigate as The Center for Public Integrity recently revealed how those who had put money into Stanford Financial continue to be abused.
Recall that the SEC failed to protect Stanford investors for many years and only exposed the ongoing scam after the commission had itself been exposed as incompetent for failing to monitor Bernie Madoff. Not only the SEC failed to uphold its mandate to protect Stanford investors but also the regulators at FINRA and ultimately the Securities Investor Protection Corporation as well.
With zero protection for our fellow citizens who had been given every impression that proper oversight was in place, they now receive further insults on top of their original injuries. The CPI highlights the continued abuse,
When 18,000 people got fleeced in Allen Stanford’s $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme, the court appointed a receiver in 2009 to recover as much money as possible from Stanford’s failed companies to return to investors.
After four-and-a-half years, the receiver, Ralph Janvey, began mailing checks ranging from $2.81 to $110,000 to hundreds of investors. That amounts to about $55 million of the $6 billion lost in the scheme, less than a penny on the dollar.
Unlike the investors, Janvey, who has billed from $340 to $400 an hour for his services, is making out quite well. To date, Janvey and his team have recovered $234.9 million from the bankrupt Stanford Financial Group and spent more than half the total — approximately $124 million — on personnel and other expenses.
Are you %$#*& me?
The lawyers take out more than 50 cents on every dollar recovered to date and investors have received less than a penny on the dollar of their original investment. Sounds to me like one racket profiteering from another. But this gets even worse.
Recall that Allen Stanford actively curried favor with many elected representatives in Washington and liberally spread his favors upon many pigs and their respective committees in that town on both sides of the sty.
. . . Janvey sued the Democratic and Republican national party committees to recover Stanford’s contributions. He also sent letters to the more than 50 senators and House members who received Stanford contributions but did not go to court.
Fewer than 20 returned the money, he said.
There you go folks. Those are our public servants continuing to feed from the trough.
Although some of these politicos would maintain that they redirected funds received from Stanford to charities, make no mistake the money should have gone back to those investors whom our government, i.e. financial regulators, failed.
Wouldn’t you like to know who the pigs are who have yet to return Stanford investors’ money? I would and plan on writing to Janvey today to request a release of those names. If you would care to join me, his contact info provided by his law firm Gordon Herlands Randolph & Cox LLP is rjanvey@gordonherlands.com
Investor protection? In name only.
Navigate accordingly.
