The new president should fire Christopher Cox, Chairman of the Security and Exchanges Commission, before the new president even steps away from the podium on Inauguration Day January 20.

Cox and his cabal of laissez faire appointees over at the SEC stripped most of the safeguards against runaway speculation soon as they took office. His bunch of professors and jerks who never worked on Wall Street eliminated financial rules that were put into the SEC Laws in 1933 and 1934 to make sure the markets functioned fairly and safely, and to ward off the possibility of the recurrence of the Great Depression.

For instance, a critical rule was this: In order to sell stock short, you had to do it on an "up-tick." An up-tick is when a stock sells for a higher price than the previous sale.

Short-selling is betting that a stock's price is going to fall. Hedge funds and speculators use it to make money during a falling market.

Cox and his demons eliminated the up-tick rule.

An example of how that helped get us to where we are: a stock like AIG (American International Group), the country's largest insurance company (among other services), dropped like a rock from the 40's to a little over two dollars in weeks. It dropped because the financial crisis and the mortgage mess began the slide, but the short sellers climbed on and pulverized it.

They made billions. But remember, for ever dollar made there is a dollar lost.

Who lost? Millions who have retirement funds, 401k accounts, IRA's and pension funds.

All because Cox and his robber barron buddies wanted it that way.

Chris Cox was a Congressman from Orange, CA. His district is a bastion of neo-conservative fervor. I heard him speak in person once and decided I would avoid listening to his warped ideas about America ever again. Somehow, he was appointed head of the SEC by Mr. Bush.

The next president MUST kick Cox's ass out of that job before the foxes kill all the hens.