Jul. 18, 2023
Dear Ms Countryman I am supportive of this overdue reporting requirement on swaps or any other derivative instruments. Too long has this been unchecked, with a plethora of ways for derivatives to directly or indirectly impact the valuation of the underlying asset they represent. Recently, the house of representatives submitted a comment raising concerns around how the proposals can 1. "impair market liquidity" 2. "Releasing sensitive and potentially misleading information to the public" I would like to briefly address both of these. 1. Market liquidity should not always be possible and should NOT be strived for. In fact when there is a severe imbalance in supply and demand it SHOULD be illiquid. The fixation on keeping the markets "liquid" to the point of introducing an absurd amount of synthetic financial products is unjust and distorts the reality of value. If a normal grocery store can sell out of items or overstock and have to dispose of excess, so too must our financial markets play by the same rule. No one will die from a shortage or excess of one financial asset and we should not distort supply and demand or introduce unnecessary complexity. 2. I have always been an advocate of allowing the people to make informed and educated decisions. It is critical that we level the informational playing field, and unjust that currently these swap based information are exclusively available only for the financial elites. It's not too far fetched to consider this disparity an "insider trading" to benefit the elites. I would caution the house of representatives not to underestimate or demean 'the public'. We are capable of , and should have the right to form our own opinions based on publicly available information. Withholding that information from us does naught but earn our distrust. If the markets are truly fair, what is there to hide? If Congress fears the public may be "mislead" rather than trying to stifle freedom of information, they should take concrete action to increase the publics financial literacy at large. Make it a mandatory part of the educational curriculum to learn about finance markets and structure. Highly encourage (or mandate) all investors to interact with SEC and other respected authorities' publications. In particular I'd also like to thank and give credit to the SEC for the recent informative investor bulletin publication on holding your security. https://www.sec.gov/about/reports-publications/investor-publications/holding-your-securities-get-the-facts Thanks again for the opportunity to comment, and please continue to fight for household investors rights + a fair and transparent financial market. Ben L