September 16, 2011
What are you thinking? Why would the SEC even consider changing this 60 + year old rule regarding REITs? A rule created when Franklin Roosevelt was still president and the democrats controlled Congress? Where is the problem? What do you propose, more Government intervention into a private sector system that works very well and funds most of the mortgages in this country? Leave this alone! Is the SEC trying to kill what's left of the real estate market or just take it over? Change this rule at the political peril of the current administration and your own jobs. Many retired people depend on REIT income to replace the income destroyed by the Federal Reserve's policy of keeping interest rates (and therefor CD rates) near zero.
The SEC solicited comments on this, and after reading the comments posted on the SEC site for thirty minutes, I couldn't find even ONE person who is favor of changing the current rule. Which probably means you will ignore the people and change it. After all, most of the people holding stock in REIT's are "speculators" - mostly retired 'speculators. If you really want to listen, then listen to the messages posted on your own comment board loud and clear, nobody outside the SEC / government wants the REIT rule to change.
If the SEC wants to do something useful that actually protects the small investor, then reinstate the uptick rule and regulate the machine trading. But, despite pleas from individual investors, the SEC continues to protect hedge funds who lobby against reinstating the uptick rule and the machine traders who "front run" the stock trading system by placing their machines between the market and small investors.
Leave the REIT rule alone.
Chuck Griffin
Covert, Michigan