Randomly Noted

There are facts. There is political reality. As those two clash, it won’t come out well for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC’s chairman, Mary L. Schapiro, marshalled facts in a speech today, hitting hard that the watchdog agency needs more money to modernize to fulfill its role, especially in light of the additional responsibilities handed the SEC by the Dodd-Frank Act.

The reality is the SEC had better review all its operations, set its priorities and stop some things so it can do others well. The top priorities should be enforcement and watching ever-more-sophisticated stock market patterns.  Other functions, such as investor education, will have to fall by the wayside.

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We are now living through the reason the leader of Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year called for the right for the agency to fund itself.

We are now living through the reason the Congress won’t honor that request.

It’s about power and control. It’s about the opportunity to take a second whack at signed legislation through a tight grip on the purse.

Let us summarize. SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro has asked for the right, granted other U.S. financial regulators, for the SEC to fund itself through the fees it collects from the companies under its purview. That would allow the agency to better meet enforcement and other duties.

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Accountability is a word more often spoken than acted upon.

That’s why if someone is asking for more accountability, willing to eliminate reasons to turn to mitigating circumstances when things go wrong, we ought to say yes.

Right now, the chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission is asking for more accountability. To be specific, SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro is asking for more money for the watchdog agency. But she is asking in a way that brings with it greater accountability.

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It’s revealing how the presumed universal good of bolstering investor confidence can be claimed by both sides of an important issue such as short selling U.S. stocks.

Here are the quotes.

After duly noting the positives brought to the table by oft-despised short sellers (market liquidity and pricing efficiency), Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro today said, “We also are concerned that excessive downward price pressure on individual securitues, accompanied by the fear of unconstrained short selling, can destabilize our markets and undermine investor confidence in our markets.”

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