Mary Schapiro Quotes

What we're going to do is redouble our efforts on financial regulatory reform, because that has in it sensible things like say on pay, so at least the shareholders are minding the store, sensible things like saying, for heaven's sakes, compensation should be focused on - on long term, so that you don't have rewards for short-term risk-taking.

… clean up thoroughly unwholesome conditions in the field of investment. In this we have had assistance from many bankers and businessmen, most of whom recognize the past evils in the banking system, in the sale of securities, in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling, in the sale of unsound mortgages and in many other ways in which the public lost billions of dollars. They saw that without changes in the policies and methods of investment there could be no recovery of public confidence in the security of savings.

American business would be run better today if there was more alignment between CEOs' interest and the company. For example, would the financial crisis of 2008 have occurred if the CEO of Lehman and Morgan Stanley and Goldman and Citibank had to take a very small percentage of every mortgage-backed security... or every loan they made?

It should strengthen investors' confidence. This is done through transparency, high quality financial reports, and a standardized economic market. This is not just for China, but also for the world market as a whole.

The securities laws of the 1930s were so important because it forced companies to file registration statements and issue prospectuses, and it remedied the imbalance of information.

Corporate governance should be done more through principles than rules.

The financial crisis is a stark reminder that transparency and disclosure are essential in today's marketplace.

The real mechanism for corporate governance is the active involvement of the owners.

I really believe that all CEO pay should be voted on by shareholders ahead of time. Mine was.

You can look at what I did in the Senate. I did introduce legislation to rein in compensation. I looked at ways that the shareholders would have more control over what was going on in that arena. And specifically said to Wall Street, that what they were doing in the mortgage market was bringing our country down.

I had made a mistake in presuming that the self interests of the organizations of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.

When companies fail, shareholders bear the losses. It's just the way our system is supposed to work.

Make the financial industry pay for its mistakes. That's the idea behind the best of the Obama administration's reform proposals: If banks issue securities backed by mortgages, say, then require them to hold some of that paper so that they will bear some of the losses.

We need to change how we run banks. We need to change the culture. If we get it right, we can have a huge impact.

Enhanced transparency has helped to reinforce the stability of India's financial system.

What the American people don't understand is how Merrill Lynch or AIG or Lehman Brothers can reward people, and the entity fails. Not only do the shareholders lose, but the entities lose.

Banks are run by executives, and executives protect themselves, and that does not always mean that banks are going to behave rationally.

The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud.

I think the market should reward banks that have been transparent in recognising their problems. I think the tendency of banks to hide the problem assets over a period of three or four years should not be allowed.

Second of all, I don't think Wall Street is doing what it's supposed to be doing, even after the shameful performance of the last two years. They're are not allocating capital.

Credit ratings and risk weightings must undergo a thorough process of review and revision. No security or instrument on the planet should have a zero risk weighting.

Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.

Look, I've always said from the word go many years ago that I felt the whole bonus culture, they need to think very carefully about being detached from the rest of the British public.

Once I really got into securities fraud prosecutions, I came to realize how central they were to the maintenance of a free market and how, in many ways, they are far more important to the welfare of our society than many of the more sensational criminal cases that one hears about.

In confusing stock options with ownership, corporations confuse trappings with substance.