The SEC customer protection proposals are based on the well-intentioned and implicit assumption that if the requirements are adopted, broker-dealers will continue to offer the same customers the same variety and level of services at the same prices – and that the broker-dealers will do so in a way that provides additional protections and benefits to the customers.

What if that is not the case? What if, for example, (i) introducing brokers deregister to become investment advisers, (ii)…

The role of an SEC commissioner is to establish securities law policy, not to rewrite tax policy. Tax policy is driven by considerations that are somewhat larger than executive stock buybacks. From an economic standpoint, Commissioner Jackson's observation that companies used the reduction in taxes to buy back their stocks, largely from U.S. investors, as opposed to investing in "innovation," is an inconsequential one. If money sitting overseas is returned to U.S. investors, those investors…

The addition of these Focus Pages, combined with the wealth of materials that are already a part of this technology, makes US Regulatory Intelligence the only financial regulatory platform that offers such a powerful and cost-effective means of getting answers, keeping current and assessing developing risks.

This should be the first among several steps that the SEC takes to make it easier for regulated firms to electronically deliver all documents. By way of example, broker-dealers should be able to assume, in the absence of client objection, that they may deliver all required disclosure documents electronically.

The printing and transmission of paper documents, many of which go right into the wastebasket, is expensive and wasteful (and anti-green).