Dear FINRA, as a European citizen and not professionally or directly involved in the US market if not as a retail investor, I don't know how qualified or entitled I am to write to you, but seeing that you make an effort to hear our opinion, and since we can only appreciate this action hoping in constructive and effective changes in the future of the world market, here it goes: I am aware that any and most investigations take time and a lot of effort. Reducing this time or facilitating that effort can obviously improve the overall outcome, but it's not cheap nor easy and often hasty progressions tend to oversee important information. In my humble opinion, the time it takes to process an investigation is not the real issue. The real issues are the potential consequences for a crime, and a general lack of governmental power to enforce the laws already established. If I may prolong with an example; once a friend of mine wanted to park his expensive car right in front of the venue we were going to. Obviously it was illegal to park there, upon my comment about it he simply answered, "it's not a problem, worst case I pay a 200.- fine". He didn't see a crime with sole pecuniary consequences as really illegal, only as something that has a potential price tag. You see? Once the penalty for a crime is limited to money, we are not equal as humans anymore. The moment you take 200.- from a person that only has 200.-, you will take not only his money, but also his freedom and every other potential thing he could have achieved or bought with those 200.-. If you take the same 200.- from a millionaire, he is not even going to feel the pecuniary consequence, in fact as it did happen with my friend, his biggest reason for irritation was that he had to loose a few minutes of his time to pay the fine... We are finally getting to my point; I believe that with certain crimes, and especially those that influence other people heavily and negatively, the punishment should be dealt to a commodity each one of us has, in the same amount every single day; TIME. Once the penalty for market manipulation becomes prison time, serious prison time, any potential criminals will think more than twice about ever risking that. I know this might be unrelated to the specific changes you were looking for in the reporting process of shorting and I would like to apologise, but I believe this to be the root of all problems related to most crimes and manipulation in any market across the world. We unluckily live in a world where ethical and moral justice reside in an out of bounds territory for legal justice. Making this change would definitely live up to the flagship the US markets have been for the rest of the world, while paving a way for others to follow, all while setting an example, a new standard, a better and free market. I appreciate you taking the time to read my comment and wish you success for the future to come. Sincerely, A concerned fellow human. Luca
Luca Haverkate Comment On Regulatory Notice 21-19
Dear FINRA, as a European citizen and not professionally or directly involved in the US market if not as a retail investor, I don't know how qualified or entitled I am to write to you, but seeing that you make an effort to hear our opinion, and since we can only appreciate this action hoping in constructive and effective changes in the future of the world market, here it goes: I am aware that any and most investigations take time and a lot of effort. Reducing this time or facilitating that effort can obviously improve the overall outcome, but it's not cheap nor easy and often hasty progressions tend to oversee important information. In my humble opinion, the time it takes to process an investigation is not the real issue. The real issues are the potential consequences for a crime, and a general lack of governmental power to enforce the laws already established. If I may prolong with an example; once a friend of mine wanted to park his expensive car right in front of the venue we were going to. Obviously it was illegal to park there, upon my comment about it he simply answered, "it's not a problem, worst case I pay a 200.- fine". He didn't see a crime with sole pecuniary consequences as really illegal, only as something that has a potential price tag. You see? Once the penalty for a crime is limited to money, we are not equal as humans anymore. The moment you take 200.- from a person that only has 200.-, you will take not only his money, but also his freedom and every other potential thing he could have achieved or bought with those 200.-. If you take the same 200.- from a millionaire, he is not even going to feel the pecuniary consequence, in fact as it did happen with my friend, his biggest reason for irritation was that he had to loose a few minutes of his time to pay the fine... We are finally getting to my point; I believe that with certain crimes, and especially those that influence other people heavily and negatively, the punishment should be dealt to a commodity each one of us has, in the same amount every single day; TIME. Once the penalty for market manipulation becomes prison time, serious prison time, any potential criminals will think more than twice about ever risking that. I know this might be unrelated to the specific changes you were looking for in the reporting process of shorting and I would like to apologise, but I believe this to be the root of all problems related to most crimes and manipulation in any market across the world. We unluckily live in a world where ethical and moral justice reside in an out of bounds territory for legal justice. Making this change would definitely live up to the flagship the US markets have been for the rest of the world, while paving a way for others to follow, all while setting an example, a new standard, a better and free market. I appreciate you taking the time to read my comment and wish you success for the future to come. Sincerely, A concerned fellow human. Luca