Perhaps it appears "safer" to consumers when regulators propose to increase regulation (and never to lessen it). But that is the wrong approach. The adoption of rules is inherently a process of prediction and those predictions may turn out to be wrong. Rules may become outdated or not have their intended effect or may be more expensive to implement than projected. Regulators should evaluate existing rules on an ongoing basis, just as they consider new rules.  

Perhaps it is time to revisit the notion that there should be a presumption of the delivery of paper documents.

Broker-dealers should be aware that contingent liabilities, such as guarantees, are treated as liabilities for net capital purposes. Accordingly, broker-dealers should generally not provide any guarantees except those that are adequately collateralized by margin securities.

It is not obvious that a record amount of fines should be considered an achievement. To take one example, many of the fines the SEC imposed on recordkeeping failures this year seemed utterly disproportionate to the violations of law (a). Likewise, while the SEC may boast of the number of enforcement actions it brought against crypto firms this year, these actions have not brought the SEC any closer to developing a workable regulatory scheme applicable to crypto assets.