Aug. 12, 2022
August 12, 2022 Self regulatory committees that regulate within the best interest of the organization and not the people they are supposed to represent are a critical risk to the freedom and fairness in our financial markets. It has come to light in the short time since the GameStop situation that there is much more crime and coordinated fraud in the market than we had previously thought. Take for instance Archegos or JP Morgan manipulating the precious metals market. All of this under the watch of a self regulatory institution. While Hester Peirce would argue that regulation in oversight could be a waste of time in the long run for the employees who oversee these things. Without proper oversight we miss potential fraudulent behaviors by people with positions that elevate them beyond the means of their common man and put them in a position in which their benefit comes at the loss of the average American Citizen. Financial markets are supposed to be a tool for the average citizen to support a busin ess they believe in and receive a return for their support. But today all we see is over speculation, a complete disconnect of the investor and the corporation due to regulatory bodies like the DTC and DTCC. There is no transparency in the circulation and booking of assets and the average investor can no longer tell whether what they own is being used against them on the market in a short position. It is outrageous that these Self regulating organizations could even argue that they operate in the best interest of the public after allowing Apex Clearing to mitigate their risk by pushing it upon the average retail investor with the help of the DTCC. It is also outrageous that there wasn't enough evidence in the trial to create a more transparent understanding of the situation for the retail investor. The entire trial was a ruse that regurgitated false information to the public to try to quell our justified anger in the lack of financial oversight and good faith toward retail. (I would say protections but fundamentally markets built on the idea of buying and selling should never have one turned off in favor of the other, especially since one side represents the average retail investor the buy side. The other represents large interests like institutions and private equity who were probably still allowed to trade positions when the buy button was shut off for retail based applications.) Self regulating organizations that handle assets in the billions will never have a raison d'tre for protecting retail. It will always be in their best interest to operate to survive, even if that would mean accepting trillions in the form of taxes on millions of average Americans, some of which don't even participate in the markets that so heavily influenced their lives in 2008. Organizations that can affect all Americans so negatively should have outside oversight and should be held accountable. I support this ruling.