February 22, 2007
Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F Street, NE
Washington, D.C. 20549
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of the Commission,
As of this writing, Three Thousand, Four Hundred and Eighty Five citizens signed the following petition seeking the end of illegal and manipulative naked short selling, the counterfeiting of commercial securities.
Here is the link to the public comments on the matter,
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?mrktrfrm
http://tinyurl.com/3dj99j
Copy one of the above links to your Internet browser address bar to review the comments and the petition.
It will not be enough for the SEC to eliminate the ill-conceived grandfather clause from Regulation SHO. Main Street is demanding that the SEC enforce securities regulations on the books for more than 73 years.
It is not acceptable for the SEC to permit the flooding of electronic counterfeit securities into the US stock market system. It never was, and it's not going to get any easier for you to continue it. I will assume the SEC understands the risk of allowing market operators to lobby their way out of their obligations this time around. When Regulation SHO was implemented in January 2005, the SEC tacked on the grandfather clause which effectively pardoned preexisting strategic failures to deliver, also known as illegal naked short sales, AKA stock counterfeiting.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have now given securities fraudsters over two years to clean up their counterfeiting acts. The working citizens of America were hoping Regulation SHO was for real in 2004 and 2005. Unfortunately, I cannot say we were surprised to learn that it has accomplished nothing more than the publication of lists of companies that have been systematically raped by organized criminals.
We know it must be hard for the crooks to even think about giving up the billion dollar bonuses achieved from siphoning OUR investment capital, but it is WELL beyond the point where they are going to be able to come away from this perpetual RICO Act crime unscathed. As an effective regulator, you would actually be helping them limit their losses if you step in sooner than later though. Of course, they will not appreciate it a first when this all comes unraveled, but they will thank you years later for lowering the rescue later into the deep annals of counterfeit hell, where the currently reside.
After you eliminate the grandfather clause, we expect you to enforce our decades old existing laws that specifically prohibit the counterfeiting of securities.
I ask each of you to think about this very hard.
It has been more than 750 days since you mandated the publication of the Regulation SHO threshold securities lists. Overstock.com (NASDAQ symbol OSTK) still sits on that list today,
http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/aspx/regsho.aspx
http://tinyurl.com/3jjm2
YOU have permitted an artificial supply of shares, counterfeit securities not authorized by the company, to destabilize the natural supply and demand principle that determines share value.
YOU have permitted retirees, holding Overstock.com in their retirement accounts, to lose millions of dollars while you sit there with complete access to data that informs you exactly who is stealing their retirement nest egg.
YOU have enabled fraudsters to bank millions of dollars by committing this fraud for a living.
YOU have eliminated integrity from your mission statement, and at the same time eliminated integrity from our national market system. Informed companies have taken their initial public offerings offshore, to markets that specifically prohibit and prosecute illegal naked short selling, the counterfeiting of commercial securities. Why IPO in the US and risk the "Vonage treatment"? That was an absolute disgrace, and you let it happen after YEARS of US calling, writing, and meeting with you and every representative in the US Senate on this matter.
YOU have educated every individual investor, of all ages and backgrounds, that they would be fools to invest in this market and expect natural supply and demand to establish stock value.
I fully believe 99 percent of SEC employees are honest and law abiding Americans. I encourage the majority to stand up and blow the whistle on the handful of your peers and supervisors that bring shame to the entire organization by catering to Wall Street cronies with "JUICE". I assure you that this debate is about much more than investors that are just mad because they want to see their stock go up (Commissioner Nazareth, we will never forget that sentiment you expressed that told us all exactly where your interests are).
I want you to ask yourselves where you will be when the music stops in this game of crimes against your fellow Americans and investors throughout the world. Will you be someone that could have stopped it but did nothing? Or will you be a Gary Aguirre, someone that would not lay down to systemic problems in the organization, and someone that led the Senate Committee on the Judiciary to conclude there is something very wrong at the SEC? It is time for you to pick up the phone and do what needs to be done to end this nonsense. We know it's time to take out the trash on Wall Street, because the stench out here on Main Street is becoming unbearable.
This is my opinion.
Sincerely,
US Citizen