Jul. 26, 2022
Greetings, I am not a financial professional, an accountant, or an investment advisor. I am merely a retail investor. That being said, it doesn't take decades of experience in the industry to read the proposed changed in SR-OCC-2022-803 to see that its a very bad idea for everyone in this country except for Wall Street. The OCC should not have to tap into pension funds to counterbalance the risk of its members. Simple as that. The fact that they already have over $5 billion worth of access to pension funds is, in my opinion, heinous. Especially considering the fact that many of the funds they do have access to are backed by state and local governments, with those funds meant for the retirements of state and local government employees. If the OCC has looked at their system and determined that they have to have access to more money to handle risk then THEY SHOULD REQUIRE THAT EXTRA MONEY FROM THEIR PARTICIPANTS. If the participants are unwilling to provide that additional collateral then the OCC should be forcing participants to UNWIND THEIR RISKY POSITIONS, not pushing their hand deeper into the public pension cookie jar, self-assured that any calamity would result in a government bailout. The fact that this rule change is even being considered by the SEC further undermines any remaining confidence I had that the SEC was interested, even a little bit, in protecting the American investor or the American taxpayer. Reject this change, and force the OCC to cover its own risk. Pensions are a retirement guarantee for hard workers that contribute to it for their own futures, not as an insurance policy for Wall Street's mistakes. Jeff Weldon