Got it in one!
My old firm is in the news a lot these days:
I could find many more articles like this. Basically the fines mean nothing to a firm like KPMG. They will carry on as usual until the ‘punishment’ for audit failure changes. Until those in charge are carted off for some jail time nothing will change.
I do not mean licensing poor pathetic vulnerable employees to take on the task (although some might) of investigating corrupt malfeasant cheating. I mean we ought to create a form of accountant detective companies that would make profits by investigating and charging Corporate fraud and then collecting BIG Bounties!
david fb
Eons ago, in one of my medieval history classes, we discussed how Charlemagne organized his justice system. As in many countries, judges rode a circuit, going from town to town. Because the church infected the law so thoroughly, Charlemagne had each judge paired with a cleric, to ride the circuit. The extra touch that Charlemagne added was, after completing one circuit, the judge would next be sent out with a different cleric, and ride a different circuit, so no-one on the circuit got too cozy with the judge or the cleric.
So, Plan Steve:
1: have all the auditors paid by the SEC, to break the obvious conflict of interest in an auditor being paid by the company he is auditing.
2: no auditor audits the same company two years in a row.
3: when an auditor revisits a company, inevitable as there are a limited number of auditing firms in the US, a different team does the auditing.
This would bring even louder howls from the “JCs” than holding investment advisors to a fiduciary standard.
Right. Like Jamie Dimon, “JCs” are not accountable for the corruption that goes on during their watch. “Personal responsibility” is only for proles and “losers”. Until people start being perp-walked, like the honchos at Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, and others, twenty years ago, Shiny-land will continue down it’s road of rampant corruption.
Steve
Steve, I love your Charlemagne scheme.
Its direct descendant was the Hapsburgian “Inspector General”, which was the theme of a superb novel by Gogol, inspired by Pushkin. It led to an insane Danny Kaye hit movie which lightheartedly hits major themes of this thread
and
david fb