Government watchdogs

Today we look at one of those government watchdog operations.

We are using these sources for this report:

http://www.avoidthescam.net/  This website is run by the secretary of state of the state of Illinois – his picture is prominently displayed on the webpage. Here is the wording accompanying the photo, “The Secretary of State Securities Department investigates investment fraud and assists investors who are the victim of fraud.”

Then we look at these news stories:

Exclusive:  A financial time bomb in Chicago http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/exclusive-financial-time-bomb-chicago/tue-06172014-731pm

SEC charges Illinois for Misleading Pension Disclosures http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1365171513202#.U6Lr3ZUg_IU  

SEC Charges Illinois With Fraud Over Pensions http://www.npr.org/2013/03/12/174080025/sec-charges-illinois-with-fraud-over-pensions 

So, in Illinois, the secretary of state investigates investment fraud and assists investors who are the victim of fraud.  All right.  We can see from the news stories that we need it.

So, let’s look at these news stories.  The first one is an excellent piece by a Chicago Sun Times reporter detailing significant penalty costs to the city if their bond rating keeps dropping as it already has under both the new and the old mayor (by the way the specific deals analyzed were done under the highly acclaimed leadership of the old mayor.)

The next two articles deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission charging the state of Illinois with fraud.  Illinois agreed to settle the charges.  We also show the NPR report on the same fraud because it points out that only two states have ever been charged with fraud by the SEC – New Jersey and Illinois.  Americans wouldn’t seriously think about electing someone from these places to a high federal position would they?

So we have fraud in the state of Illinois in their reporting and we have Chicago betting on interest rates with some pretty big exposure to taxpayers.  So we looked to see how the secretary of state of Illinois with his view to fraud and investment schemes and looking out for the public dealt with these situations. 

Here is what we found: