You don’t have to be a big fan of the drug war to suggest that extending a helping hand to murderous gangs is probably not activity an allegedly reputable bank should be involved in.

The NYT discovers what FDL readers have known for quite some time: the SEC is a doormat outside the banks and financial institutions of Wall Street.

But it’s not just people outside the SEC who see this. The Partnership for Public Service took data from annual OPM employee surveys of government workers and discovered that in 2011, the SEC ranked at or near the bottom in the “large agency” category, dragged down by abysmal ratings for the employees’ views of the effectiveness of the leaders and the leaders’ strategic management.

Whether seen from the inside or the outside, the conclusion is the same: the SEC is failing at its mission. For the banks, this is a feature, not a bug.

I’m going to have a few follow-up posts about Steven Rattner’s Overhaul generally and Saturday’s book salon on it. But for the moment, I wanted to add something to two excellent reviews of it by Malcom Gladwell and Felix Salmon. Together, they both distinguish between the product GM makes and the debt it had.