September 2, 2011
To Whom it May Concern,
My wife and I have been saving for retirement for many years. Unfortunately like many others we lost 40% of our portfolio in the dot com crash 10 years ago. We then lost another 35% in the crash of 2008. We are desperate to make up for those losses and sadly just to break even on the money we have actually put into our IRA's Hence we've turned to REIT's. With their generous dividends this seemed to be the only way we could recoup some of the money we had lost in previous crashes. However since you posted this request for comments we have lost 8% of our retirement accounts. That is why I beg you to please, please not change the rules for REIT's as I'm now faced with the choice of either selling and taking yet another loss or holding on during the rule change and once again face devastating losses, now that much closer to retirement. I do not want to become a burden to my son or to my country. A rule change now would seem imprudent as it would send one of the few strong sectors of the market into a precipitous decline, and it would destroy the retirement savings of so many working Americans.