london times on AIG

or, more to the point, here is the london times's expose about a man from brooklyn named joseph cassano, and his role in AIG's derivatives business. it's great reporting (despite being owned by rupert murdoch, the times does, occasionally, put on a good show) overall, and deserves more than the casual summary i would usually deliver. what struck me especially, though, was not its account of what can only be described as herculean fraud, but a little sidenote about the securities and exchange commission thrown in on the second page. apparently, the SEC employed only one person to oversee the nearly $600 trillion derivatives market. one person had to account for transactions more than 50 times the value of the united states economy. i guess that's the best possible answer to why ben and i find it so hard to get government jobs in regulation: the government doesn't employ regulators.