May 5, 2009
Greetings. My husband and I are retired civil servants, a city police officer and a teacher, respectively. We have worked hard for our money, and diligently invested in what we thought were safe, investment grade instruments. Encouraged to trust "managers", we watched helplessly as our passive funds lost half of their value due to the intrinsically hurtful practices of the short sellers who have destroyed our assets invested in the stock market. We don't want to live like kings, we want to be comfortable, having done our duty to serve, educate our future citizens and protect civilization from anarchy. But what we witnessed to no fault of our own, the practice of short selling, mercilessly beating-down the Market for their own selfish, greedy means, was a travesty to us and our peers. Encouraged to invest rather than just save, to "put our money to work" in the Market, only to have it inviscerated is not only dishonorable, but theft. The Securities Exchange Commission's job is to protect us. Instead, you led us sheep to the wolves, and they had a feast. How dare you allow these preactices to continue. A history ignored is a history doomed to repeat itself. The Uptick Rule was established to protect us, to allow our retirement to grow. To not re-instate this Rule is granting license for these same wolves to continue to devour the retirement of many. Please do not allow this practice of Short Selling to continue...this is not a "game" but our hard-earned money, and you, SEC, discredit yourselves if you allow shorting to continue. Thank-you very much for your time.