May 7, 2009
I am not an Economist, Business Leader or Politician. I am just a simple middle class worker, trying to get through each day as best as I can, saving as much as possible to fund education and retirement needs of my family and essentially survive in today's unbelievable environment. I do not have imperical evidence, statistical models or raw data to back up my thoughts on this matter. I only have my years of experience, understanding of human nature and observation of my own situation which has gone from solid to questionable. So you will need to weigh my comments with those of the Learned and Power Elite whom I am sure have a lot to say and in my opinion have been capitalizing on the removal of this uptick rule.
Without the proper controls in place, the human emotion of greed will dictate and seek to influence the markets in such a fashion as to improve the position of the individual person with the means to do so. None of us need imperical data or letters after our names to understand that. Did the removal of the uptick rule cause the problems we are experiencing today or was it simply fuel added to the fire, I don't know if any of us will know that. But I will tell you this, there are many investors like myself who are not the Power Elite, and we have lost incredible amounts of assets over this past year. And if we are being honest with ourselves, we all know that certain groups have gotten extremely wealthy because of this time and because of removal of this rule.
The time for discussion is really at an end. It is time to put the rule back into place and study the results of that reinstitution. There really is no further time for talk or hesitation.
Thank you.