Thursday, September 18, 2008

In 2004, SEC exempted five firms from required capital/debt ratio regulations.

They are:

Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.
Ouch !

The SEC allowed five firms to more than double the leverage they were allowed to keep on their balance sheets and remove discounts that had been applied to the assets they had been required to keep to protect them from defaults.

NYSUN.com