Aug. 21, 2023
I support the proposal for greater transparency on swaps. Honestly, I feel its still too lenient and should be stricter and more transparent. As a household investor working hard in this country to support my family I find transparency, not just in regards to swaps but for an actual fair and free market instead of what we currently have, to be of the utmost importance. Personally I also feel the SEC should disregard any arguments or excuses from financial institutions claiming that increases in transparency would be too costly or would take too long. In our modern day and age there is absolutely no reason for simple data reporting to be anything costly or time consuming. Logistics companies like warehouses process absurd amounts of data regarding the products being shipped and employees doing the work. They manage to do this in real time and under strict time constraints, but its essentially a non-issue because the process is largely automated and functioning under sets of rules and practices that are designed and regulated to efficient. If logistics companies staffed almost exclusively by people that our country and its people look down on as being uneducated or "less capable" are able to execute such a feat 24 hours a day 7 days a week then it is beyond ridiculous that any massively wealthy and economically important financial institute with access to top of the line technology and the best and brightest employees that money can buy could ever have so many problems with simple tracking and reporting of numerical data. It is literally just "weaponized inefficiency" on their part. By making, or at least pretending, that it would be too costly, time consuming, or complex to report the data and then lobbying to get exceptions and exemptions they are just creating a system that effectively allows them to justify hiding important information. It is completely ridiculous. If swaps reporting is made properly transparent, with frequent reporting, and *crucially* actually ENFORCED then it would go a long way to helping to ensure the integrity of our markets. So long as transparency continues to be limited it will just further allow for financial crimes by the already rich against or economy and the regular populace that gives their lives to keep this whole sick machine running. Just to re-iterate, while I support this proposal the most important thing is actually enforcing it. Not just with a slap on the wrist punishments that are just a, likely tax write-off-able, cost of doing business. There needs to be MEANINGFUL punishments and actual consequences. Ban institutions from trading, jail time for the higher ups, bans from employees participating in markets, fines that are substantially larger than any illicit profits gained and that don't just cycle into the pockets of government and regulators but actually aid those who were negatively affected by these actions. Thank you for your time and I hope you take these comments into consideration. As a side note, while its not directly related to this proposal I would like to take the time to say that Failure-to-Deliver (FTDs) in our market is absolutely crucial to address. Any amount of rules and regulations won't really amount to anything and our markets will just continue to be a made up game of IOUs and fraud so long as financial institutions are allow to get away with taking hard earned consumers money without actually delivering the product that was bought. This would NEVER be allowed in a looked down upon job like a restaurant or warehouse, but its apparently just business as usual in the financial world. But in reality its just stealing. Taking money for a sale without delivering the goods is stealing. Its just able to be gotten away with because its a different term being used and the government always gets its little cut of the crime in the end. Disgusting. FTDs MUST be dealt with and punished! Please do anything in your power to look into and address this issue. So long as it continues our market isn't free, fair, or even a market at all. Its just a shell game and a scam with a fancy coat of paint and good snake oil salesman talking a good game.