Don't know if you've been following the saga of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff and his alleged $50 million Ponzi fraud scheme. To be honest, I haven't. But one of the figures that has come under fire in the scandal is Meaghan Chung, the Securities and Exchange Commission staffer who apparently failed to act on a tip that Madoff was a fraud: THE SEC WATCHDOG WHO MISSED MADOFF.
Cheung was the branch chief of the SEC enforcement division in New York during a 2006 SEC probe of Madoff. Harry Markopolos, the would-be whistleblower, has singled her out for her failure to uncover the Ponzi scheme despite lengthy warnings. Her investigation at the time found no evidence of fraud, and effectively gave Madoff the all clear.
Now she's getting blamed. A lot. Is she the culprit? The one to blame for the failure of the American economy? Or is she a scapegoat? Because when people lose that much money, they really really really need someone to blame. My guess is, the blame can spread around on multiple levels. No need to make Cheung carry all of it.
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