Obama Taps Mary Jo White To Run SEC

Mary Jo White, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been tapped to serve as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It's difficult to be certain, but it seems like a move in the direction of tougher enforcement. White's been in the private sector for ten years and thus no doubt has her share of industry ties, but her main professional background has been in government. What's more, it's symbolically significant to choose a prosecutor for the post. As a federal prosecutor in both Brooklyn and Manhattan she oversaw cases against everyone from John Gotti to Ramzi Yousef. She doesn't lack experience with Wall Street—in fact, she prosecuted some high-profile securities fraud cases—but her interactions with it were a subset of her overall prosecutorial brief. Finance doesn't come to the attention of the US Attorney's office unless the poi...