Election Day the Pits for Pitt
By George Anderson
The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Harvey Pitt resigned from his post on the same night Republicans were toasting to their success at the polls.
Mr. Pitt’s tenure as the head of the SEC lasted less than a year and a half and it was fraught with scandals and controversy. Accounting fraud weakened investors’ faith in publicly reported numbers and the stock market spiraled downward.
Moderator’s Comment: Will Harvey Pitt’s resignation
buoy investor confidence and the equities market?
We went from thinking that Harvey Pitt was the scapegoat
for the dishonesty and greed that seemed rampant on Wall Street to believing
he was the poster boy for the Peter Principle. How else can you explain his
decision to put someone (William Webster) dealing with his own accounting issues
at the top of the new accounting oversight board? [George
Anderson – Moderator]