Penalty amounts are an area in need of examination, particularly when combined with the complexity of trade reporting.  

Or perhaps if FINRA could explain why the collected data is important, or how FINRA makes use of the data, that would help explain the penalty amount. It would also make the rules more comprehensible, if one understood the uses that were made of the data.  

The FTX debacle was arguably the direct result of the prior Administration's refusal to allow crypto to operate within a regulated environment. Had banks been permitted to provide custody of crypto asset, investors would have likely custodied with regulated banks, not with FTX.  

Once again, this case illustrates that there is no consistent rationale to the FINRA penalties imposed on individuals. For example, in a  a broker that caused $100,000 in losses and costs to a retiree was not hit with any money penalty and got a three-month suspension. But in this case, an administrative assistant, who may not have realized that she was doing something improper, and did not cause any customer injury, was subject to a $5,000 fine and a six-month suspension. These are not…

Under the prior Administration, there were continued complaints that the private capital markets had become overly important in comparison with the public markets. No serious consideration was given as to how that trend could be reversed, or as to whether the SEC shared material responsibility. One egregious example of the SEC refusing to ask itself what role its regulations had played in the decline of the public capital markets was former SEC Chair Gensler's claim that a twenty-five year…