A penalty of $125 million is substantial, but is a small fraction of what the SEC asked for. Further, the two principals were not required to forfeit the $600 million that they personally received. One would think Ripple and its executives are happy with the outcome. That said, this result and the SEC's decision to allow Ether ETFs to be listed on exchanges (effectively conceding that Ether is not a security, but failing to explain why it is not) raises further uncertainty as to the state of…

One may reasonably believe that permitting betting on elections is unseemly and should be prohibited on that basis. But the economic and legal arguments made against futures contracts on elections are weak, particularly as to the Presidential elections.

As to the authority of the states to regulate federal elections, surely, the federal government has authority to pre-empt any control that the states might claim over federal elections. The argument that the federal government should…

Real question: how fast does your cash go out the door on bad news?                                                        

By forcing the clearing mandate on non-US banks engaged in transactions with non-US counterparties, the SEC may be betting that the clearing mandate will not discourage foreign participation in the US government securities market. If the SEC is wrong, then the cost of financing the US debt will increase.  

There is no compelling reason to think that the SEC is right. In fact, it's a rather remarkable bit of risk taking. And it's hard to see any compelling upside.