Presidential Endorsements, Politics, and Arthur Levitt

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J. Robert Brown over at Race To The Bottom is always good for thought-provoking insightful posts.  That is if you like that sort of thing rather than short, tongue-in-cheek, throwaways.

Which I do.

So I have to have a “Black Eye” not a “Red Eye” before I sit down to see if he’s written anything new and interesting.  After perusing the latest on Saturday morning, I’ve now got a full pipeline of new legal-type stuff to comment on.
Some of  you may have started to think, “Why does an accountant who purports to write about the Big 4 write about lawyers so much?”  
Well, by the looks of some of the incoherent searches I’ve seen leading to my posts, some of you may never use the word “purport.” 
But I digress.  I mean, I’m getting off the subject.  “Digress” is another word some you may never use.
Lawyers use words, not numbers, to misdirect, mislead, and misbehave.  That’s why I like them.
I’m a word person.  Scrabble is my game, in English and in Spanish.  In fact, I like to play it in Spanish with the Mexican waiters at a local wine bar just to push myself.  Now that’s an intellectual challenge….  Scrabble in Spanish, after a few glasses of Brunello di Montalcino…
There I go again.  
What was I writing about?
Oh, yeah.  
Arthur Levitt.
So, J. Robert Brown tells us that three former SEC Chairmen have endorsed Barack Obama for US President.  
Oh, so refreshing.
As J. Rob tells us,

SEC Chairmen and the Presidential Election
The WSJ reported yesterday that three former Chairmen of the SEC (Ruder, Donaldson, and Levitt) have endorsed Barak Obama. In other words, they are not endorsing John McCain.

… Whatever the polls say about the close nature of the election (McCain and Obama are running almost even), this type of endorsement does not bode well for the McCain campaign. It suggests that those connected to business interests (Chairman Levitt has a long history on Wall Street, including running the American Stock Exchange, Chairman Donaldson ran the NYSE) are gravitating towards Obama.

Chairman Levitt, by the way, was in Denver last week for the Rocky Mountain Securities Conference. He, as usual, gave opinionated and blunt remarks that demonstrate his continued belief in the mission of the SEC…

Ya gotta love Arthur Levitt. He’s a pistol.

So, I ask Mr. Levitt:

If you’re really on the side of bright new things and change and right, why are you still shilling for AIG and PwC?

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1 reply
  1. Independent Accountant
    Independent Accountant says:

    Francine:
    I have wondered about these things too. Many of my blog posts are about judges, prosecutors, attorneys and regulators. Yes, they use words to confuse and mislead. That’s their job. That’s even the job of Treasury Secretaries.

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