Of public capital and public interest

First, on the matter of public capital, we are the 99.9%, according to this Forbes article/opinion piece carried on Yahoo Finance, excerpts extracted:

The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains

The top 0.1%-- about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million-- are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.

The [Bush 2003]reduction in the [capital gains] tax from 20% to 15% continued the step-by-step tradition of cutting this tax to create more wealth. It had first been reduced from 35% in 1978 at a time of stock market and economic stagnation to 28%. Again 1981, at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October 19 th-- 23% crash in the market [obvious transcription error in article here]. In 1997 Clinton agreed to reduce it back to 20%, which move was an inducement for the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most "rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent."

The facts are clear according to the Congressional Budget Office more than 80% of the increase in income inequality was the result of an increase in the share of household income from capital gains. In fact, you can go so far as to claim that "Capital Gains income is the most unevenly distributed-- and volatile-- source of household income," according to Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California business professor and former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

I commend you to the late Justice Louis Brandeis warning to the nation that " We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Coincidentally, Guambat finally received his New Yorker magazine for October 24 in the mail today (thank you Captain Jack), and found resonance with its cover:



As as to public interest in those capital gains (and losses), consider the opinion of US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff, when asked to rubber stamp a "settlement" of a complaint by the SEC against Citibank. On October 19, 2011, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
(the "S.E.C.") filed lawsuit [as well as a parallel Complaint filed the same day against Citigroup employee Brian Stoker], accusing defendant Citigroup Global Markets Inc. ("Citigroup") of a substantial securities fraud. Excerpts, snippets and such follow.

Although this would appear to be tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent ("scienter," in the lingo of securities law), the S.E.C., for reasons of its own, chose to charge Citigroup only with negligence.

The Court turns first to the standard of review. In its original Memorandum in support of the proposed Consent Judgment! filed before the case had been assigned to any judge, the S.E.C. expressly endorsed the standard of review set forth by this Court in its Bank of America decisions, i.e., "whether the proposed Consent Judgment ... is fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the public interest."

In its most recent filing in this case, however, the S.E.C. partly reverses its previous position and asserts that, while the Consent Judgment must still be shown to be fair, adequate, and reasonable, "the public interest ... is not part of [the] applicable standard of judicial review." This is erroneous.

As a fall-back, the S.E.C. suggests that, if the public interest must be taken into account, the S.E.C. is the sole determiner of what is in the public interest in regard to Consent Judgments settling S.E.C. cases. That, again, is not the law.

[A] court, while giving substantial deference to the views of an administrative body vested with authority over a particular area, must still exercise a modicum of independent judgment in determining whether the requested deployment of its injunctive powers will serve, or disserve, the public interest. Anything less would not only violate the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers but would undermine the independence that is the indispensable attribute of the federal judiciary.

Before the Court determines whether the settlement is fair, it must ask a preliminary question: fair to whom? As the holding of Trucking Employers quoted above makes plain, the answer is fair to the parties and to the public.

Purely private parties can settle a case without ever agreeing on the facts, for all that is required is that a plaintiff dismiss his complaint. But when a public agency asks a court to become its partner in enforcement by imposing wide-ranging injunctive remedies on a defendant, enforced by the formidable judicial power of contempt,3 the court, and the public, need some knowledge of what the underlying facts are: for otherwise, the court becomes a mere handmaiden to a settlement privately negotiated on the basis of unknown facts, while the public is deprived of ever knowing the truth in a matter of obvious public importance.

Applying these standards to the case in hand, the Court concludes, regretfully, that the proposed Consent Judgment is neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest. Here, the S.E.C.'s long-standing policy - hallowed by history, but not by reason - of allowing defendants to enter into Consent Judgments without admitting or denying the underlying allegations,4 deprives the Court of even the most minimal assurance that the substantial injunctive relief it is being asked to impose has any basis in fact.

As a matter of law, an allegation that is neither admitted nor denied simply that, an allegation. It has no evidentiary value and no collateral estoppel effect.

As for common experience, a consent judgment that does not involve any admissions and that results in only very modest penalties is just as frequently viewed, particularly in the business community, as a cost of doing business imposed by having to maintain a working relationship with a regulatory agency, rather than as any indication of where the real truth lies. This, indeed, is Citigroup's position in this very case.

Of course, the policy of accepting settlements without any admissions serves various narrow interests of the parties.

In this case, for example, Citigroup was able, without admitting anything, to negotiate a settlement that (a) charges it only with negligence, (b) results in a very modest penalty, (c) imposes the kind of injunctive relief that Citigroup (a recidivist) knew that the S.E.C. had not sought to enforce against any financial institution for at least the last 10 years, and (d) imposes relatively inexpensive prophylactic measures for the next three years.

In exchange, Citigroup not only settles what it states was a broad-ranging four-year investigation by the S.E.C. of Citigroup's mortgage-backed securities offerings, but also avoids any investors' relying in any respect on the S.E.C. Consent Judgment in seeking return of their losses. If the allegations of the Complaint are true, this is a very good deal for Citigroup; and, even if they are untrue, it is a mild and modest cost of doing business.

It is harder to discern from the limited information before the Court what the S.E.C. is getting from this settlement other than a quick headline. By the S.E.C.'s own account, Citigroup is a recidivist [external link added], and yet, in terms of deterrence, the $95 million civil penalty that the Consent Judgment proposes is pocket change to any entity as large as Citigroup.

While the S.E.C. claims that it is devoted, not just to the protection of investors but also to helping them recover their losses, the proposed Consent Judgment, in the form submitted to the Court, does not commit the S.E.C. to returning any of the total of $285 million obtained from Citigroup to the defrauded investors....

the Court is forced to conclude that a proposed Consent Judgment that asks the Court to impose substantial injunctive relief, enforced by the Court's own contempt power, on the basis of allegations unsupported by any proven or acknowledged facts whatsoever, is neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest.

It is not reasonable, because how can it ever be reasonable to impose substantial relief on the basis of mere allegations? It is not fair, because, despite Citigroup's nominal consent, the potential for abuse in imposing penalties on the basis of facts that are neither proven nor acknowledged patent. It is not adequate, because, in the absence of any facts, the Court lacks a framework for determining adequacy. And, most obviously, the proposed Consent Judgment does not serve the public interest, because it asks the Court to employ its power and assert its authority when it does not know the facts.

An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous. The injunctive power of the judiciary is not a free roving remedy to be invoked at the whim of a regulatory agency, even with the consent of the regulated. If its deployment does not rest on facts - cold, hard solid facts, established ei by admissions or by trials - it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.

Finally, in any case like this that touches on the transparency of financial markets whose gyrations have so depressed our economy and debilitated our lives, there is an overriding public interest in knowing the truth.

the S.E.C., of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency's contrivances.
Accordingly, the Court refuses to approve the proposed Consent Judgment. Instead, the Court hereby consolidates this case with the Stoker action, adopts the Case Management Order in that action as equally applicable to the instant case, and directs the parties to be ready to try this case on July 16, 2012.

Clearly, the Court believes the public not only can handle the truth hidden by settlements such as this, but they are entitled to know it. We need more same same decisions.