The agency has undergone "Regulatory Capture" and therefore does nothing to stop insiders like Madoff and hassles law abiding companies. The fact that they exist gives people a false sense of security that anything you can buy from a stock broker is not an outright fraud. Without them people would do the due diligence on their own. Any outright frauds could be handled by local police or FBI if it crosses state lines. Again, the whistle blower in the Madoff case thought he was done by sending info to the SEC; he might have gotten farther with a local DA or the FBI