April 4, 2007
Amendment SHO on it's face was finally an admission by the Commission that they recognize that Fails to Deliver (FTD's) DO EXIST in our markets, and if left unchecked, leave open the chance for great abuse and outright fraud in the form of Naked Short Selling - using the Share Borrow Program as a sheild to allow the brokers/market makers to directly control the prices of targeted securities by artificially manipulating the balance of supply in the market.
Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out?... but somehow seems to elude our most educated regulators? Even when folks like Jim Cramer go on tape and admit to using these tactics in the past as a hedge fund manager...and then as the face of investing prowess on one of our largest financial TV networks, wipes his butt with an SEC supeona on national television .....sad that so little respect is felt for our Commission due to it's pathetic track record of regulation enforcement. The bad children have simply outnumbered the parents, so the parents have just given up? Sad and pathetic.
The Grandfather Clause portion of SHO was a clear - and I'd argue illegal - "get out of jail free card" for all of the abuses of the past - which the Commission themselves admitted was done to prevent volatile swings in the markets? Volatile?...therefore large and unbalanced.
If this clause isn't overturned and those that abused the markets for these many years aren't held accountable for what they created and sold for profit out of thin air, the Commission has again given a clear message that if you can abuse the laws and systems of this country to such an extent that it has become to big to face, that you will be allowed to walk away free.
Why not just apply this to serial killers? Let's put a law on the books that says if you can get up to 50 murders before we catch you, then it's just to big, hard, and expensive to prosecute....so you can just go free with a promise not to do it again? Absurd analogy? Maybe. Totally in line with what has been done here. 100% true.
Get off your high paid, ELECTED duffs and do your job how it was intended. Protect the investors....not the insider criminals who fund your golf outings.
Thank You.