OPINION: Tom MacArthur and former AIG executive propose bill to make securities fraud even easier

A letter to the editor by Terry Cini of Riverton NJ

I just can’t get over Representative Tom MacArthur. He seems hell bent on destroying this state with some pretty brazen moves.

Do we all remember in 2008 the financial crisis of the century that wiped out our retirements, decimated our jobs, and tanked the values of our homes with foreclosures? New Jersey is still digging out, with tons of foreclosures still depressing our housing market. I know, because it is still affecting me – the value of my home is depressed by the comparables resulting from short selling of homes around me that followed.

The overwhelming scope of that disaster, caused by securities and bank fraud, let most of the executives behind it to get off scott free. Very few paid a price at the federal level for their fraud. Some who would have escaped completely were held to account by state laws, and prosecutors were able to go after them and catch what the feds could not.

Now Tom Macarthur is outrageously proposing a bill in Congress to decimate our state securities laws. He has some friends behind him.

The securities fraud of A.I.G. Insurance was the canary in the coalmine of that horrible financial crisis. The former CEO of A.I.G., Hank Greenberg, is behind the initiative Tom MacArthur is proposing. Tom Macarthur was an insurance executive at A.I.G. with Hank Greenberg. Hank Greenberg and his new company back Tom MacArthur’s campaign for congress with tens of thousands of dollars.

It wasn’t enough to spearhead the attempt to gut our healthcare. It wasn’t enough to be the only representative in New Jersey to support Trump’s “smash and grab” punitive tax bill that hits New Jersey harder than every other state save one, and will further depress our housing values.

Now he wants to make it easier for executives like his disgraced friend Hank Greenberg from A.I.G. to do again what they did to us in 2008. I sincerely hope MacArthur is on his way out this November before he succeeds in entirely destroying this state and putting us all in the poorhouse – again. He must foresee this exit, otherwise he would be a little stealthier than his own brazen “smash and grab” initiatives that help his friends before he goes.

Editor’s note: The opinions in this letter are the author’s only.

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