
Don’t worry about government regulating health care, get them to regulate the financial markets:
Madoff said it was “amazing to me” that he didn’t get caught … because they specifically asked him, “Are these securities at DTC? (Depository Trust and Clearing Corp.)” They further pressed, “What is your account number.” He replied, “646.” Madoff stated that it was “obvious they thought that something was amiss.” He went on to say that when they asked for the DTC account number, “I thought it was the end game, over. Monday morning they’ll call DTC and this will be over… and it never happened.”
Madoff stated that when … Enforcement did not follow up with DTC, “I was astonished.”
But the real question is, can the industry be regulated at all:
Madoff noted that the industry is growing incredibly complicated. He gave the example of when his firm put up a credit default swap and didn’t know how to do the books. Madoff said he didn’t know … He said he called Merrill Lynch, Lehman Bros, five firms total, all of which didn’t know. He said the NASD had no clue. Madoff stated that today, lots of trades are done off the books because people don’t know what to do with them.
‘Too Big to Fail’ banks have nearly a one percent advantage over small banks, a $34 billion dollar subsidy. 