Subject: Comments for File Number S7-12-11

May 20, 2011

Just think about it. If you did your job in such a way that it ruined the economy, don't you think that you would be demoted, or unemployed? That's the way things work in the real world.

On the other hand, if YOU don't do your job, the people who work in the financial industry will continue to be paid humongous bonuses and salaries for COLLAPSING our economy because of their greed. Only in the financial world does one get an obscene bonus for ruining thousands of people's future. Only in the financial world can one pretend to be a bank while betting against one's clients and get bailed out by the gov - at taxpayer expense (First the industry shafts you, and then the gov. makes you pay their bonuses for doing their dirty work!)

Yours is the agency that has the "primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry". Do you actually think that you have done your job? Where have you regulated the securities industry lately? Where are the perp walks? Where are the people who perpetrated this destruction of lives going on trial and to jail? While you ignore their crimes and refuse to make rules to set standards, they thumb their collective noses at the rest of us. "Ha ha! I screwed you and you can't do shit about it because I'm rich and I have the lobbyists and I have the SEC to protect ME, not you."

I am unemployed because the economy was in free-fall and has not come back. My neighbor had her job deleted because of the economic downturn, and everyone I know has taken a hit in their 401Ks and pensions. Why? Because of the morally bankrupt people who are working in the financial world without limits. And YOUR office bears direct responsibility for its lack of regulation because you have not done the job you are charged to do. How is it that all these stories are coming out about whistle-blowers whom you ignored because you couldn't see how they were screwing the public and continue to do so? Why do you refuse to regulate the derivative markets? So much for protecting the consumer. To quote Donald Trump, "You're fired!"

But then, why should you listen to me? I can't afford to even take myself to lunch let alone you.

Richard Fochtmann