Aug. 15, 2023
I support the adoption of the proposed regulations. I read comments by AIMA purporting that the mere act of reporting swap information causes less liquidity and less efficient markets. At no point does AIMA give an example of how on earth reported data will lead to less liquidity and efficiency. Quite frankly, this strains any credulity and no intelligent, educated person would draw a causation between the two. The institutions and hedge funds who are suggesting this sound a bit like hostage takers: "keep doing what we want, and nobody will get hurt." But this is not advantageous to either fair and transparent markets, or the integrity of our democracy. If we avoid making changes to market structure that will benefit the 99%, in order to appease the corporations who want to keep enjoying their shadowy, secret advantages - we have become a mere plutocracy. Wall Street appears to resort to veiled threats whenever the SEC dares to propose regulations that will threaten the unfair advantages they have enjoyed for far too long. This is incredibly inappropriate. Swaps can be a ticking time bomb in the financial system - we need only look to Archegos and Credit Suisse for a recent example of the sweeping destruction that unreported positions can cause. Not only should swaps be reported, but this information must be made publicly available, so that market experts, economists, SEC staff, Congress, and the general public can monitor this potential risk in real-time. The impact of a swap implosion has the potential to impact all of us, should it be large enough. This is reason enough to require reporting - there is simply too much at risk for the general public to continue obfuscating this data.