I just read an article in The New York Times by Eric Lichtblau, David Johnston and Ron Nixon that says the FBI slashed its criminal investigative work force after the 9/11 attacks to focus on terrorism. The white-collar crime team was slashed from 1,722 agents to 1,097. The number of cases pursued in financial institution fraud, securities and commodities fraud, consumer fraud, bankruptcy fraud and insurance fraud fell from 3,130 cases in 2000 down to 1,662 in 2008. To top it off, there was an overall decrease of 132 agents at the FBI. Read the article and see if it makes your blood boil.
So there you have it: No regulation, no enforcement, no transparency, no truthfulness, no watchdogs and now no one to go after the bad guys. Another piece to the puzzle of how and why this crisis happened.
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