John McCain: I'd fire SEC Chair Cox

From what I've been hearing, the President doesn't have the power to fire the SEC chairman. But since Sarah Palin feels she can fire anyone she wants, maybe she will do it. Cox is a deregulator, just like Phil Gramm and John McCain. Sen. McCain certainly has a tough task right now blaming the Republicans when he is one himself.

C'mon In the Thank Frank, take off your scuba suit. It's absolutely not unfair. Cox's job is to regulate the market. He hasn't done it. True, congress and Barney Frank haven't given him the tools to effectively regulate it that much, but Cox still could have reined in the casino environment by banning short-selling. If you want to fix the mess on Wall Street you've first got to stop the excesses. Firing Cox and appointing a commissioner that will ban short-selling would send a strong message that this type of behavior won't be tolerated any longer.

What's REALLY weird is the fact that the president can't fire the head of the SEC. So, McCain is just all bluster in his big fat bold claim.

This is typical McCain. He attacks a person without considering the policies which were in place before Cox was appointed and would remain were he to be fired. McCain is punting, without knowing anything about the problem. The system needs fixing. This is not about personalities. McCain swings and misses. Again. he couldn't fly a plane, and he cannot drive this country out of the ditch his party drove it into.

Rupert makes a point I meant to include but neglected to. The president doesn't have the power to fire the chair of an independent commission. That's why they're called independent commissions. So McCain's vow to fire Cox is hollow and misleading. One has to assume McCain understands how independent commissions differ from other federal entities. After all, as a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee he often dealt with the Federal Communications Commission, another independent commission. Did he forget or was he being intentionally misleading?

You're a moron, Len, he absolutely can. The President appoints the SEC Chairman and can fire him. Oust, "fire" use whatever word you want. Bush already got rid of one of them during his term. Even Obama's had a hand in removing an SEC commissioner. If McCain didn't want to act directly to remove Cox he could simply wait for his term to end and nominate a new commissioner, too.

Grandpa's getting cranky.

McCain's handlers are just grabbing the sound-bite-of-the-day from CNBC and loading it into John's addled mind to parrot today. His comments illustrate vividly that he really has no idea what he's saying. Nor does he have a clear picture of the problems that have lead to this calamity, or how to solve them.

In this latter regard he's in good company; nobody really does.

But paying the slightest attention to presidential candidates' remarks in the last months of a campaign is waste of time.

Why would one assume McCain knows anything? He doesn't seem to know where Spain is.

The scarry thing is after McCain makes these comments which all the time his campaign has to come behind him and make corrections as if if hes not led, he'l say and do anything. I don't think he really know whats going on.

It's as if somebody says, 'Just go here and here and here. Wave at the crowds and say' You will know their names. You will know their names.' Or, 'I know how to find Bin Laden and I know how to fix the economy' but actually saids nothing. Scarry.

Naked Short Selling is rampant.

Just ask the president of Overstock .com. This problem has been going on for years with a wink and nod from the SEC and NASD. The heart of the problem is DTCC (electronic transfer) whose board members are the elite of Wall Street.

Thousands of small companies have been forced out of business by this tactic.

Yeah, I can think of another SEC chairman who dropped the ball on Dubya's Harken exploits:

The company was a mini-Enron and the short story is that Bush used low-interest loans from Harken to buy company stock (a practice he denounced as president), dumped $848,000 on an insider trade, didn't report it to shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission (another practice he later denounced as president) and approved business deals that led to SEC investigations.

In 1990, Bush left the oil business after clearing nearly $1 million in cash while losing more than $3 million of other people's money.

Jeff, how strange that anyone else commenting here has the same take on this as I. So I guess that makes everyone except YOU a moron. Right?

Sure, OK. Be happy living on the same planet as McCain.

Only problem is: the President can't fire the SEC commissioner.

He can request a resignation, but it would be unconstitutional for McCain to try and fire Cox.

In any case, with his latest overnight re-invention, McCain is the biggest hypocrite of the election cycle.

McCain and his pal, former Senator Phil Gramm, helped to single-handedly destroy financial regulation in this country.

The same deregulation that took greedy lenders (yes capitalism may produce a rapacious desire for profits, who didn't expect that?) off the leash.

McCain doesn't believe in alleviating any pain on Main St. or helping those caught out by the housing crisis, but he is apparently maybe-possibly-marginally-today-but-not-yesterday in favour of corporate socialism on Wall St, where its fine to bail out reckless CEOs.

Enough is enough. It is time for McCain to stop acting so blatantly two-faced, accept that his populist 24-hour makeover is palpably phony, and for him and the rest of the Republicans to 'own their failure'.

Cheryl, that whole radio exchange with McCain and the host was just bizarre. I honestly think McCain didn't either recognize the name or just plain was completely unfamiliar with it -- and then seemed to think it was someone living in Latin or South America, if you listen closely to his response.

Just more GOP ineptitude.

The claim that the president cannot remove Cox as Chairman is wrong, as I explain in detail on my blog:

http://www.stephenbainbridge.com/punditry/comments/mccains_moronic_critique_of_cox/

“The Chairman of the SEC serves as such solely at the pleasure of the President.” Harvey L. Pitt & Karen L. Shapiro, Securities Regulation by Enforcement: A Look Ahead at the Next Decade, 7 Yale J. on Reg. 149, 280 n.557 (1990). Indeed, the Tenth Circuit so held in the Blinder, Robinson case cited above. See 855 F.2d at 681, stating that “as the President has the power to choose the chairman of the SEC from its commissioners to serve an indefinite term, it follows that the chairman serves at the pleasure of the President.”

Jeff,
Ban short selling? Please go back and read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Pay particular attention the section about 'information" and "prices"

So when does Cox term end Jeffy. As Frank says, it's an independent agency. Not unlike judges, who he appoints but can't fire. Besides, McCain has always been a free market laissez-faire guy, just like Cox. Until this week, at least. And don't call Frank a moron, you doofus.

I completely agree that the SEC chairman should be "ousted" by the President. At least McCain has the balls to stand up and make a decision and say he would do something. Obama never says anything until he has discussed it with his staff of 300 economic advisors and can use a teleprompter to remind him of what it is he is supposed to say

Everybody (Democrats & Republicans) deserves to take some credit in "The Blame Game". How about flaming Barney Franks? O'Reilly made some good points on his show. How about George W. Bush? He is a good man and a simple man and unfortunately, I do mean "simple". "Great job, Brownie!" Or, how about his good friend who he referred to as my buddy "Kenny Boy"of Enron fame?

Everybody needs to be held accountable on this mockery that has been allowed to run rampant because nobody (especially our people at the top) had the guts to hold anybody accountable for their actions (or lack of action). President Bush's buddy "Kenny Boy" got handed a free pass to avoid prison timet. Emil "Mr. ComEd" Jones can only act when his good friend calls him to pull his strings and tells him what to do.
It appears that the inmates have taken over the control of the asylum, folks. Lock up the money and hide the women and children.

I'm waiting to hear McCain say that he'll fire activist Supreme Court judges.

McCain wants to fire Cox?
Posing is art, in it's highest form.

If Cox was appointed in 05, and had to be approved by the Senate, and the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Cox, doesn't that mean McCain was for Cox before he was against him?

Gramm, the cracker, should not just be fired, he should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity for his role in ruining the lives of hundreds of people in the Enron scandal.

Garbage in--garbage out. Terrance must have been doing the risk analysis.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/how-wall-streets-quants-lied-to-their-computers/

Its funny to read all these idiots who think McCain misspoke because he can't fire the SEC Chairman. Actually he can. Get your facts straight next time.

Well we don't have to worry about firing Cox. After hearing what Obama and McCain have to say about the SEC, he has said he will resign when Bush leaves office. The rest of the Commission may want to get to work.

Pete, that's bizarre logic. Cox interviewed for the job. Are you with me so far? Cox got the job. He screwed up so badly in his duties he needs to be fired, which a president *can* do.

Wouldn't a boss be *for* you before he's *against* you when he/she fires you?

The SEC chair and the Fed chair can not be fired. Once their term is up the prez. is free to make a new appointment contingent on the permission of the US Senate.
Once confirmed, these chairs can not be fired.
Repeat....

McCain the well-known Deregulator in the Senate, wants to fire Cox, a fellow-deregulator. He can't fire him of course.
The senator has forgotten his role as both Deregulator and Lobbyist in the Keating Five scandal. Banker Keating got five years in the Big House for defrauding his bank's customers of their life savings. But the senators who chased away the Regulators who were investigating Keating's bank, got away with it. They were senators McCain, DeConcini, Glenn, Cranston, and Riegle. They looked after the taxpayers alright!

Isn't it hypocritical to jump on the regulating bandwagon now that Wall Street went bust?

But that's how McCain is nowadays: he gets up in the morning and makes up the "lie du jour"!

Chester,
Pete's simple but true point would be;
Cox carried out deregulation and lack of Wall Street oversight in just the manner McSleepy approves.

McCain might not need to be a blowhard about Cox but the mistake that he can't remove the SEC chairman has been well refuted by Bainbridge (posted here) as well as other attorneys familiar with the this question. It makes one look ill informed while waxing eloquent.

Some Dems have called for similar firings of people they can't touch. The fact is, Cox should be removed. The reason: He wiped out the uptick rule last year WITHOUT fixing naked shorting. Naked shorting is nearly the same thing as counterfeiting stock certificates. If you allow people to create stocks out of thin air and then sell them with no uptick rule to stop the skid, you are a fool who should be unemployed, especially in a time when one party spends millions trying to run down perceptions of the economy.