Alan Greenspan, the Big Man in Finance
It occurs to me that the big man in finance is not Alan Greenspan or whoever happens to chair the SEC at the moment, not the heads of Wall Street trading firms and certainly not the business moguls who run international companies.
The big man in finance is the institutional investor and it's long past time for him to exert pressure for reform to a degree that matches his power. Like McDonalds in the French fried potato market, the institutional investor is the big guy on the block. When McDonalds wants a particular potato, they don't have to look for it, growers are anxious to fill the need.
So, if institutional investors want one of their own, John H. Biggs, who is himself chairman of a large pension system and who all (except the brokerage houses) want and esteem, to head the new SEC accounting regulatory agency, they're going to get him. That is, if they make their desires known. McDonalds, after all, has to name the potato.
If institutional investors want teeth and transparency in ac…