Maine Owl

Bluster at the SEC and the proposed naval blockade against Iran (as supported by Mike Michaud) serve the same constituency.

John C. Dvorak has an irregular podcast with money manager Andrew Horowitz that is worth a listen. Here is a link to Monday's edition: Incredible Congressional Hearing and Other Observations on the Dvorak-Horowitz Stock Analysis Podcast.

If you listen from about ten to twenty minutes in, you'll hear Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) grill Securities and Exchange Commission officials about the Madoff scandal in a House hearing last week. The jist of the outburst is that SEC officials were told by whistleblowers that Madoff was rotten, but did nothing. As Dvorak says, it's pretty entertaining. Sad, too, of course. And it indicates just how screwed the American financial system is and just how much contempt both officials and financiers alike have for the public.

It's not that the SEC doesn't deserve strong criticism. But Ackerman may be just a bit too much of a performer and may not be as clean in the Madoff arena as he appears. See THIS in Harkavy's blog at the Village Voice, where a YouTube of the Ackerman performance is posted.

Harkavy, has quite an interesting angle on Ackerman's rage at the Madoff scandal: "Gary Ackerman's blast at SEC? Just theatrics from AIPAC loyalist who once took cash from Bernie Madoff." Also, Gary Ackerman's phony bluster: He and Congress pals deserve blame; his own district hard hit by Bernie Madoff.

Harkavy: Ackerman's own blistering attack on the sitting-duck SEC officials is easily explained: The congressman represents parts of Queens and Long Island, but he also represents conservative Jews across the country and in Israel as one of Jewish-hawk lobby AIPAC's most ardent loyalists. Madoff's scam deeply cut into that constituency of Ackerman's. Shouting "Shonda!" at the SEC should keep him in good stead with those folks.

Then, Harkavy discusses last spring's H. Res. 362, a non-binding resolution suggesting a blockade of Iran while preventing it from importing refined petroleum products. This still-unpassed measure continues to be supported by our own Mike Michaud.

The point is that both Ackerman's bluster at the SEC and the Iran blockade are part and parcel of the same politics.