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On the broader question of the CFTC's lamentable regulatory record so far, critics charge simple incompetence and lassitude. Bagley retorts that the CFTC is just too small to do its job properly. He notes that the SEC, which polices stock and bond trading, has a staff of 1,955 and a budget of $58 million; CFTC has a staff of 440 and a budget of only $13 million. Says Bagley bitterly: "We have 26 investigators for ten markets. The Bethesda police department has that many on duty at night." The CFTC currently wants $900,000 more a year to hire an additional 60 inspectors.
It might get them too: there is considerable sentiment in both Congress and the industry to strengthen and reform the agency rather than kill it. Says Lee Berendt, president of the Commodity Exchange Inc., the world's largest metals futures exchange: "We believe the industry needs a commission, but it has lacked funds, suffers from poor management and has been afflicted by a lack of continuity in policy because of staff turnovers." Those turnovers will continue; Bagley will resign some time after the sunset review, however it goes.