Schumer’s plans for SEC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, criticized last week for failing to detect the Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scam, needs more money and a new way of getting it, said a key lawmaker on Thursday.

The SEC should be funded from the fees it charges financial institutions, not from appropriations made by Congress, said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who plans to introduce legislation next week along those lines.

“I am proposing that we fundamentally alter the way the SEC is funded. I am introducing legislation (this week), when we get back to Washington, so the SEC can use fees from institutions it regulates to fund its necessary operations,” said Schumer, a senior member of the banking committee that oversees the SEC.


Global recession ending: OECD

PARIS (Reuters) - The global recession is coming to an end faster than thought a few months ago and may already be over, but recovery will rely on massive government spending and low interest rates for some time, the OECD said on Thursday.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development issued forecasts showing a broad return to economic expansion in the third quarter of 2009.

It also said that while authorities needed to map out a strategy for withdrawal of fiscal and monetary stimulus once recovery was surer, now was no time to economize off life support.