Why do Republican SEC commissioners continue to criticize last week’s formal regulation requiring disclosure of ratio of CEO comp to median employee comp? The regulation, long overdue, is mandatory under a Federal statute (Dodd-Frank) and is no doubt watered down in final form from the spirit of the statute itself. With majorities in both houses, why don’t they try legislation to upend the law? Even Democrats ought to understand the regulation is useless and wasteful.
When will the SEC promulgate another long-overdue regulation which permits crowd funding by non-accredited investors in exchange for stock? Many States have already enacted such legislation, although the Federal exemption for such State initiatives is so narrow as to make State schemes difficult to follow and typically inappropriate for many new-economy ventures. “Dumb money” (as characterized by critics) may not be a great investor base, but here again there is that pesky little thing called a Federal statute….
Why is the SEC facing such headwinds on a couple of initiatives designed to in fact deliver the kind of individual accountability (people not companies liable for violations of law) that so many commentators deem necessary? Pressure against the Commission seeking to salvage its internal adjudicatory process, pressure against the Commission for pushing its historical definition of insider trading. Attorneys rightly point out significant issues with both internal adjudication and demanding tippers profit before tippees can be liable for tipped trades, but: there is appeal out of the Commission adjudications; and, the new judicial standard of tippee liability is not logical if the wrong to be remedied is the misuse of information that the tippee knew or should know to be confidential.
Does anyone agree with me that Donald Trump (who, disclosure here, is very far from my favorite person or politician) is getting excoriated for the wrong sins? Does his comment that you need to be a bit askew to take existential offense at his clearly ill-articulated remark strike at least some chord of credibility? Or: they desperately need to take him out, and if the McCain remark did not do it (wonder of wonders), then they have to jump on the next palpable gaffe real quick….
Finally: Frank Gifford passed away this weekend. Growing up in New York, he was my hero, the all-American two-way football player who was clean-cut, articulate, durable and relate-able. As Tittle’s key target he was unstoppable for several years. In the halcyon days of the Giants, he was the nuts. Dead at 84, likely unknown to many, or remembered only for his broadcasts with Howard Cosell who (unkind final cut by the media) is reported to have disliked Frank, the first negative mark in my memory on the poor departed(is it really twenty years?) Howard (a recovering lawyer for most of his life and thus entitled to special dispensation).