I agree with you on the gutting of the agencies. And yes it will end badly; it always does. But looking at the SEC during the Gensler era, I don't think it met the two criteria you stated up front.
To have clear rules and laws about how things work.
To have those rules and laws enforced.
I'm far from a Bitcoin maxi, but the Bitcoin ETF saga was a farce. It took a court to force the agency to allow them. All the while, people were buying Bitcoin at a premium through MicroStrategy. How is allowing people to buy Bitcoin at a premium protecting them? And it was clear from his requests to Congress that he needed more authority to regulate crypto, and absent that, he did it anyway. Gensler didn't like crypto so he wasn't going to pass rules on crypto and harassed everyone involved.
I'm not sure these problems can be solved until we have a functional Congress (and government), where collaboration across the aisle is acceptable vs. today where it is seen as cavorting with the enemy.
I don't disagree with your assessment, and I think the previous response to crypto was insane and stupid. But at least in the Gensler era we had dissent in the commission and vigorous debates, many of them public.
But yeah, it's hardly a "just now" problem. It's just made massively worse when the commissions evaporate.
The maddening question is whether, in the face of the system blatantly becoming gamified and/or rigged, is it more rational to avoid the rigged game or try to take advantage of it yourself? One could make the case that the most logical thing to do is lower exposure to U.S. based equity and credit markets as being corrupted and find other places with less tail risk due to better controls. Or we could go along with your right-leaning 'friends' and say yippee the system is rigged, let's all profit from it while it lasts. I suppose each person has to decide for themselves how deep to wade into the sewer.
Excellent column as usual, Dave. And awesome to have Lara back on the saddle at ETF.com!
I agree with you on the gutting of the agencies. And yes it will end badly; it always does. But looking at the SEC during the Gensler era, I don't think it met the two criteria you stated up front.
To have clear rules and laws about how things work.
To have those rules and laws enforced.
I'm far from a Bitcoin maxi, but the Bitcoin ETF saga was a farce. It took a court to force the agency to allow them. All the while, people were buying Bitcoin at a premium through MicroStrategy. How is allowing people to buy Bitcoin at a premium protecting them? And it was clear from his requests to Congress that he needed more authority to regulate crypto, and absent that, he did it anyway. Gensler didn't like crypto so he wasn't going to pass rules on crypto and harassed everyone involved.
I'm not sure these problems can be solved until we have a functional Congress (and government), where collaboration across the aisle is acceptable vs. today where it is seen as cavorting with the enemy.
I don't disagree with your assessment, and I think the previous response to crypto was insane and stupid. But at least in the Gensler era we had dissent in the commission and vigorous debates, many of them public.
But yeah, it's hardly a "just now" problem. It's just made massively worse when the commissions evaporate.
I couldn't be more thrilled to be back. Feels like the ETF industry needs truth tellers these days more than ever.
The maddening question is whether, in the face of the system blatantly becoming gamified and/or rigged, is it more rational to avoid the rigged game or try to take advantage of it yourself? One could make the case that the most logical thing to do is lower exposure to U.S. based equity and credit markets as being corrupted and find other places with less tail risk due to better controls. Or we could go along with your right-leaning 'friends' and say yippee the system is rigged, let's all profit from it while it lasts. I suppose each person has to decide for themselves how deep to wade into the sewer.