Cramer Against the SEC

Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission ( Chairman Christopher Cox) filed a civil suit accusing Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks owner who made billions selling an internet streaming company, Mamma.com, to Yahoo) of insider trading in Mamma.com back in June of 2004. Cramer gave a great (and amusing) rant against the SEC tonight, lambasting its outrageous indifference to its duty to regulate:

1. Credit Default Swaps, eh, who cares?

2. Spreading rumors to wipe out whole firms like Lehman Brothers & Bear Stearns, oh please why not?

3. Allowing AIG to run wild doing whatever it wants with no disclosure, no problemo.

4. Letting banks hide trillions in bad loans, big deal.

5. Getting rid of the uptick rule to allow bear raids, brilliant.

6. Batching inanely-issued mortgages into impenetrable baskets letting the brokers make a fortune while gaffing clients with them. Sounds like a good idea.

7. Not prosecuting fail-to-deliver strategies allowing short sellers to run amok, seems fair.

But going after Mark Cuban for dumping stock in Mamma.com after he got a tip from management that it was to do a very dilutive equity deal, here the SEC drew the line; it drew the line on all the chicanery that has gone on in the last four years of its ignominious stewardship. On this day, the SEC stood up and said NO MORE, because on this day it decided to train its guns on Mark Cuban for trading in Mamma.com

Just wish the SEC would bring a case against the endless deception and subterfuge, even malfeasance, we have seen this year. Maybe the SEC would bring a case against someone who took down Lehman or Bear Stearns, against dodgy Wall Street gangsters who brought down the Western financial world.

But this is the first time we have heard from the SEC in a while, and it is a stunner, because of how completely and utterly irrelevant it is to all the financial smokescreens it has passively endorsed with its total failure to pursue those who have hidden trillions in losses and lied repeatedly about them.

Mark Cuban is a terrific sideshow.