I have just read the US Securities and Exchange Commission inspector general’s report on his investigation into why, despite numerous warnings, tip offs and even formal complaints, the SEC failed to uncover Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme before he eventually confessed. The incredible story it tells should be required reading for anyone who imagines that regulation alone will ever be able to prevent fraud, even on the massive scale that Mr Madoff was able to perpetrate over the best part of two decades.

Despite the SEC missing numerous opportunities to detect the Madoff scam, the inspector general insists he found no evidence that anybody at the SEC was bribed or improperly influenced into turning a blind eye to the evidence it received. Nor was anyone paid to bungle the laughably ineffective investigations that it undertook.