September 20, 2011
RE: Mortgage REITs enjoy a broad exemption under the Investment Company Act. This exemption has allowed mortgage REITs (particularly agency mortgage REITs) to "lever up."
Please leave the REITs alone and let them continue as they have been. I am 67 and dependent on the dividends in order to live indoors and eat regularly. The SEC screwed me over royally about 17 years ago when it allowed my broker to churn away my funds, saying that "money is a man's game" and that I "was just angry because of the failure of my investment strategy". Now the SEC is proposing to rob me further. There are NO PROBLEMS with the way REITS do business, and they certainly give a better return on investment than (for example) Apple Computers.
Please leave the REITS alone!
Virgie Witte "In life's rat race it is not how fast you run but how you deal with the cats that matters."