July 17, 2008
Since you people loosened up the rules on short-selling back in 2007, I and thousands of others have been robbed blind by naked short sellers.
Naked short selling is a crime. Yet just yesterday, by forbidding naked shorting of certain financial stocks, the SEC has revealed its complicity in the crime.
How about forbidding and prosecuting naked short sellers in other sectors?
For openers you might start with the gold and silver mining company shares. The mid-size and junior miners and explorers have been ruthlessly sold since your rule amendment, with the result that with gold at over $900 an ounce, these company's shares are at all-time lows--which is an absurdity that no sane person would have predicted.
So please stop dithering about, and do what you are paid to do by people like me: enforce the law.
An article in the LA Times today said that people were losing faith in the integrity and freedom of America's markets. And why wouldn't they? We're in the midst of the financial crime spree of all times, and you people are sitting on your butts, doing nothing.
It would do the morale of America a lot of good if a whole lot of people in the financial business, starting with the present secretary of the treasury, ended up in prison for what they've done to to us all this past ten years or so.
Sincerely, Frank Brownlow.