Mr. Storch Goes To Washington

There is, or should be, a furor over a gent named Storch being named as the first chief operating officer of the SEC enforcement division.

No, not this Storch:



But this one:



His name is Adam Storch, he comes from Goldman Sachs, and he is 29 years old. (Photo from the ever-resourceful Business Insider.)

Now, getting back to the first Storch: his name is Larry Storch, and as every baby boomer knows, he was one of the regulars on a great old TV show called F Troop. F Troop ran on ABC from 1965 to 1967, which means that it was off the air for thirteen years when Adam Storch was born.

I'm sorry, but somebody who is too young to know who Larry Storch is should not be in a job of this importance. Even if he is from Goldman Sachs, and thus is part of that vampire squid thing.

The SEC, at least under Christopher Cox and its other George W. commissioners, was the F Troop of securities law enforcement. Adam Storch needs to know this, and that requires a knowledge of F Troop that he could not possibly have.

It also would be nice if he was old enough to shave.

Zero Hedge points out that he apparently doesn't have a brokerage license. I think that his lack of market experience is not necessarily a bad thing. He could have been, perhaps, administrator of some actual investigative organization, which Goldman Sachs most definitely is not.

Storch may surprise us and turn out to be a crackerjack investigative COO, despite his tender years and lack of knowledge of F Troop. But this is, on its face, not an encouraging hire.

© 2009 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.