Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. just signed a new state law that calls for stiff penalties against brokers, clearing firms, hedge funds, and anyone else who sell and then fail to deliver stock to customers, in effect creating counterfeit shares that artificially depress the value of company and shareholders’ stock. On the very same day, it was reported inn the New York Times that the top 26 hedge fund managers all earned over $130 million dollars each, and the top two managers made more than a billion dollars apiece. That’s 25,000 times what the average wage earner in America earned last year.
Well guess what? Now it’s our turn. Since our federal government and Congress have abandoned its own citizens in favor of the big money special interest groups, it’s up to the states to do the right thing for their citizens. Every state in America should pass similar legislation, and every voter in America should demand that their elected officials take decisive steps to protect America’s economy, employee and tax base, retirement accounts, and shareholders’ investments. This is how the Faulking Truth put it in our commentary from May 25th, entitled “The Circle of Greed: The Cloak of Invisibility”:
In the meantime, the state of Utah, after growing tired of waiting on a federal government that favors invisibility over transparency in almost every aspect of our financial system, overwhelmingly passed their own law dealing with another type of stock market fraud, stock counterfeiting, also known as “naked short selling.” HB3004 passed both the State Senate and the House with little debate, giving state securities regulators, publicly-traded companies, and individual investors legal recourse against brokers, clearing firms, hedge funds, and anyone else who fails to deliver stock purchased by shareholders. It is a practice that has flourished unabated for years, costing companies, communities, taxpayers, and individual shareholders trillions of dollars, due largely to…you guessed it…a lack of transparency in the stock market system. It’s just another version of the federal cloak of invisibility.
The Utah bill is a landmark piece of legislation, one that hopefully will be enacted in one form or another in every state in the country, since the federal government has done absolutely nothing to stop rampant fraud in the stock market. In fact, our leaders in Washington have shown time and again that when it comes to protecting the small investor against fraud on both sides of the market, that they would rather change the rules to hide the crime then arrest the criminals who are robbing America blind.
So what now? Overstock Chairman and CEO Patrick Byrne said about the new Utah law: "I predict this will make Utah the most attractive state for entrepreneurs and small companies in America.”
In other words, this is not just about shareholders’ rights, it’s about our state economies, attracting and protecting the small businesses...and their employees, and their shareholders, and their communities...that are the lifeblood of America’s free enterprise system. Every shareholder, voter, business owner…in fact, every American, should contact your state securities regulators and ask them what they’re doing to pass similar legislation in your state, and what YOU can do to help.
Below is a link to your state securites regulators. Call or write them today, and while you’re at it, contact your state legislators as well. Tell them to act now, before it’s too late, and give them the link to the Utah bill SB3004 posted below. America’s future might depend on it.
Here is the link to your state securities regulators:
http://www.nasaa.org/QuickLinks/ContactYourRegulator.cfm
here is the copy of Utah SB3004:
http://www.le.state.ut.us/~2006S3/bills/sbillamd/sb3004.htm
This commentary is also posted at The Sanity Check, where you can post your comments as well:
http://www.thesanitycheck.com/Blogs/MarkFaulksBlog/tabid/86/Default.aspx
Mark Faulk is the Editor of The Faulking Truth, and the author of the upcoming book entitled "The Naked Truth: Counterfeiting the American Dream," due out in July, 2006. For more information on the book and on the stock market scandal, go to http://www.faulkingtruth.com , and to pre-order your copy, go to http://www.theownersgroupinc.com/cart/
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Faulking Opinions Archives:
Worthless Opinions (In The Beginning) (Mark Faulk, Mar 26, 2004)
More Worthless Opinions (Mark Faulk, Apr 10, 2004)
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Social Security: A Third Choice (Deryl Bryant, Feb 19, 2005)
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What's Up With The SEC? (Daniel J. Popeo, Mar 29, 2005)
Dateline, NBC, and GE: LET THE BOYCOTT BEGIN! (Mark Faulk, Apr 8, 2005)
Letter to SEC: Elimination of Stock Certificates (Lori Livingston, May 31, 2005)
Is Dateline Caving to Pressure From DTCC? (C. Austin Burrell, Jun 24, 2005)
It's time to finish the job....once and for all! (Mark Faulk, Jul 10, 2005)
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The Rational Middle (Robin Buckallew, Sep 15, 2005)
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A "Viral" Email To Distribute About Stock Counterfeiting (Bob O'Brien, Nov 14, 2005)
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My Mother's (deceased) investment Credo (Henry Wade Harris, Jan 18, 2006)
A Bridge Too Far (Linda C. Wilson, Feb 17, 2006)
We Have a Landslide!!! (Mark Faulk, Feb 27, 2006)
DTCC Claims are Smoke and Mirrors (Dave Patch, Mar 6, 2006)
60 Minutes; From Joe Mainstreet to Daddy Warbucks (Mark Faulk, Mar 26, 2006)
SEC Chairman Cox's Senate Banking Committee Testimony - April 25, 2006 (Mark Faulk, Apr 28, 2006)
Stockgate: Taking it to the States (Mark Faulk, May 26, 2006)
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