What do you think?
Rate this book
Going Public: My Adventures Inside the SEC and How to Prevent the Next Devastating Crisis
An insider’s look at the SEC and the changes needed to strengthen the U.S. financial system In 2008, Americans were reeling from the devastating financial crisis that caused the Great Recession. There were searing questions about how the crisis was allowed to happen and calls for immediate reform from Capital Hill, the news media, and the general public. Multiple scandals sent real fear through the investing community and brought unprecedented heat on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). There was little doubt that the SEC had to fix rules that permitted bad behavior, shake off decades of complacency and enforce existing laws. Wall Street lawyer Norm Champ spent nearly 20 years dealing with the SEC on behalf of his clients and as an industry representative working to educate the agency about hedge funds. Believing he could help reform the deeply-flawed agency, Champ left his career in the private sector and joined the SEC. As Director of the Division of Investment Management, he became a key player in stabilizing trillions of dollars of investor capital while reenergizing the SEC’s culture and management. In Going Public , Champ presents a rare, insider’s look at how the SEC operates and explains exactly how the agency impacts the overall economic health of the country. He examines the inner workings of hedge funds, economic policy and politics, investing, and inefficient and frustrating federal agencies. Engrossing and important, this book offers critical recommendations for policy changes that will create healthy, free-functioning markets and help Americans better prepare for the inevitable next crisis.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Hardcover
Published March 15, 2017
11 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 30, 2017
A great read for someone interested in the goings on in the SEC. Glad to know that some competence and leadership has been restored after the SEC had lost credibility on both. Found the discussion of money market reform and Volcker rule implementation most interesting.
March 29, 2018
The author spent 5 years since January 2010 at the SEC, the epitome of his professional career he writes. This was right after the SEC failed in the Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford scandals; the SEC was the dog that didn't bark. He recounts the SEC's mission: "To protect investors, ensure fair and orderly markets, and facilitate capital formation." He then writes this made the USA the greatest engine of wealth creation in world history. This is doubtful. Wealth creation was happening long before the SEC was created. He chronicles how there were no policies, processes, procedures in place; how pay was increased every year despite people's performance; how the SEC is among the highest paid folks in the federal government; how anonymous whistleblowing is used within the agency as a way to force people out, ruin their careers, or at least cost them time and money, especially if they are trying to effectuate change; the archaic union rules; not being able to fire for incompetence--in his 5 years there, only 2 people were fired! One after being arrested for fraud and second for failure to show up for 5 years!; how Congress has granted lifetime employment and protections.
While the author is no fan of Dodd-Frank, or President Obama's policies, he is strangely silent with respect to Sarbanes-Oxley, which was disappointing. This law was as bad as Dodd-Frank. There was no discussion of alternative evidence that the SEC does harm, or has zero effect on markets, from economists like George Stigler. We're just supposed to except the premise that the SEC is necessary and what makes the USA the greatest engine in the world? Absurd. No discussion of regulatory capture, even though you could argue the book provides evidence for it. There's discussions about the SEC's investigations of rating agencies and money market funds, how its technology it archaic (e.g., EDGAR, which is still funded and supported by consultants who feed off of it, but would be laughed out of the private sector, he describes as the "EDGAR mafia."
His four proposed reforms to avoid the next devastating crisis are:
1) Change the FSOC to a coordinating board that's only activated by severe economic crises. There's more to regulation than just banking regulations.
2) Force government to look at the facts underlying proposed policies and analyze the consequences before instituting new regulations. Traditional cost/benefit analysis.
3) Reduce the number of regulators, merge CFTC into the SEC, and the OCC into the Federal Reserve. Restore Glass-Steagall Act to separate traditional insured banking activities from risk-taking activities (though no evidence is presented to the counter arguments against this).
4) Eliminate government sponsorship of lotteries, and use the money saved on advertising them to encourage savings and financial literacy. He says lotteries are the government's Hall of Shame, paying out only 62%, so in effect are a 38% tax on the poor. They are also not bound by FTC's advertising rules.
The book is dull in places, with far too many mundane details about the job. That said, it deserves 2.5 stars because it does give a glimpse of the internal dysfunction at the SEC. I just wish the author would have dealt with the criticism of this agency, and indeed, whether or not it is needed at all.
While the author is no fan of Dodd-Frank, or President Obama's policies, he is strangely silent with respect to Sarbanes-Oxley, which was disappointing. This law was as bad as Dodd-Frank. There was no discussion of alternative evidence that the SEC does harm, or has zero effect on markets, from economists like George Stigler. We're just supposed to except the premise that the SEC is necessary and what makes the USA the greatest engine in the world? Absurd. No discussion of regulatory capture, even though you could argue the book provides evidence for it. There's discussions about the SEC's investigations of rating agencies and money market funds, how its technology it archaic (e.g., EDGAR, which is still funded and supported by consultants who feed off of it, but would be laughed out of the private sector, he describes as the "EDGAR mafia."
His four proposed reforms to avoid the next devastating crisis are:
1) Change the FSOC to a coordinating board that's only activated by severe economic crises. There's more to regulation than just banking regulations.
2) Force government to look at the facts underlying proposed policies and analyze the consequences before instituting new regulations. Traditional cost/benefit analysis.
3) Reduce the number of regulators, merge CFTC into the SEC, and the OCC into the Federal Reserve. Restore Glass-Steagall Act to separate traditional insured banking activities from risk-taking activities (though no evidence is presented to the counter arguments against this).
4) Eliminate government sponsorship of lotteries, and use the money saved on advertising them to encourage savings and financial literacy. He says lotteries are the government's Hall of Shame, paying out only 62%, so in effect are a 38% tax on the poor. They are also not bound by FTC's advertising rules.
The book is dull in places, with far too many mundane details about the job. That said, it deserves 2.5 stars because it does give a glimpse of the internal dysfunction at the SEC. I just wish the author would have dealt with the criticism of this agency, and indeed, whether or not it is needed at all.
February 8, 2023
The impressions of Champ while working at the helm of the SEC for 4 years are very similar to the ones I had while I was at the E&Y --though, admittedly, I was at a slightly more junior position 😊 A partial list of these would include the turf war, not being open to change or novel methods, not having a roadmap about how to go about projects.
Champ seems to be on the same side of the fence as the current administration (and with Trump of course as its biggest proponent) about “streamlining regulations and agencies” – essentially a code word for reducing the former with little regard to their usefulness and defanging the latter. His “wish list” also includes the use of the FSOC to be limited to during crises – which in my opinion is absurd.
On a personal note, I did find it curious that he dodged granting an interview to Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
A few interesting excerpts:
“I soon learned SEC wasn’t a typical dysfunctional bureaucracy that needed fix what was broken. Rather, there were parts of it that had never been built.”
“The staff perceived failure as an isolated, once-in-a-century event, not a systemic problem with the way the SEC did its business.”
Champ seems to be on the same side of the fence as the current administration (and with Trump of course as its biggest proponent) about “streamlining regulations and agencies” – essentially a code word for reducing the former with little regard to their usefulness and defanging the latter. His “wish list” also includes the use of the FSOC to be limited to during crises – which in my opinion is absurd.
On a personal note, I did find it curious that he dodged granting an interview to Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.
A few interesting excerpts:
“I soon learned SEC wasn’t a typical dysfunctional bureaucracy that needed fix what was broken. Rather, there were parts of it that had never been built.”
“The staff perceived failure as an isolated, once-in-a-century event, not a systemic problem with the way the SEC did its business.”
July 12, 2025
A very interesting dive into the SEC and government service roles as a whole. While concerning to learn how disconnected and unmotivated certain branches of government regulators were, the author does offer some assurance that change both has and is happening for the better.
While it was not my favorite book, I am glad that I read it. My one gripe with the way the book was written was the lack of continuity between the chapters. Champ worked for 5 years in the SEC and almost every chapter jumped back and forth between those years.
While it was not my favorite book, I am glad that I read it. My one gripe with the way the book was written was the lack of continuity between the chapters. Champ worked for 5 years in the SEC and almost every chapter jumped back and forth between those years.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews