The Securities and Exchange Commission, ever alert except when it is mired in unbelievable incompetence, has come galloping into Dodge with pop guns popping to show Goldman Sachs who's boss.


This is the same commission that snoozed while Bernie Madoff and R. Allen Stanford performed their magic shows; you know, making wealth appear out of thin air, also called Ponzi schemes.


Authorities estimate Madoff charmed investors out of some $18 billion. Madoff said the SEC should have caught him in 2003 but instead, he sarcastically said, the commission acted like a bumbling detective.


The SEC was warned as early as 1997 that Stanford was up to some skullduggery but it was not until 2005 that an investigation began. By that time the money from investors had grown from from $250 million to $1.5 billion. Allegedly, a former SEC enforcement officer quashed earlier attempts to investigate. When he retired he went on to represent Stanford's bank. In other parts of the country this might be called "conflict of interest"; in Washington it's "business as usual."


Goldman Sachs, "too big to fail," will let the SEC show who's boss and it won't be the SEC. The commission's attempt to punish GS will be a dog and pony show; "sound and fury signifying nothing" because their case is weak and higher-ups do not want the stream of cash going into their campaigns to be interrupted. GS's latest caper was originating and selling synthetic ('does not exist') collateralized debt obligations. This was a betting set-up with one set of "investors" betting the housing boom would continue and the other set betting the bubble would burst. Wall Street: a casino without the free drinks.


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In case you had a few billion left over after paying your income taxes, you might want to consider some purchases like these:

Roman Abramovich, Russian billionaire, has built a yacht costing $1.2 billion. That's billion in case you missed it. One room on the yacht has walls covered in stingray skins.

A television set covered in gold and set with diamonds was sold by a Swiss company for $2.3 million.

A twenty story residence has been built by a billionaire in India at a cost of $1 billion. Each floor has a garden and the 6th floor has parking space for 168 cars. 600 servants are required to staff the house. At least it provided lots of jobs.

Such stories may excite some envy in us but great wealth does not bring lasting peace and or satisfaction. The Russian will eventually tire of his yacht; the gold plated tv set is just a tv set no matter how expensive; and in time the Indian may wish he had built his tower bigger or smaller. Shouldn't the famous, the rich and celebrities be satisfied to have reached what they consider the "top?" Read the recent stories of celebrities who have "reached the top" and cheat on their spouses or who died from over use of drugs and alcohol or are constantly in out of rehab of some sort. They have everything including a hollow existence. When one has experienced all the pleasure that this world affords, perversion follows.

Yet, the celebrity life style is glamorized by those who stand to profit from promoting the celebrity and many ordinary people try to emulate what they think is a meaningful life of excitement and notoriety. It would be well for celebrities and would-be's (and us) to read Psalm 73, Living Bible translation and to heed Jesus' words (Matthew 6:24) "You cannot serve two masters; God and money. For you will hate one and love the other, or else the other way around."

Paul advised Timothy to, "Tell those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which will soon be gone. But their trust should be in the living God , who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment." 1 Timothy 6;17.

Can you imagine the reception these scriptures would receive if recited in the corporate boardrooms on Wall Street? But wait. The very rich are easy targets. Before we level criticism at them we should examine our own hearts and also be sure there are no planks blurring our eyes so we can more clearly see our attitudes and emotions about, and use of, money.

I suggest a book that does not specifically address the lifestyles of fame, notoriety and/or riches but brings examples of how those who experienced them met their ends: "They Went That-A-Way" by Malcolm Forbes. Interesting book.