The Way the US Regulates Securities is Absurd

I am saving up 3 STEEM to buy a SteemConnect app. I just got 1.413 STEEM from my power down. This brings me up to 2.129 STEEM. I might have enough STEEM by this time next week to buy the service; So, I cancelled my power down.

I want the app so that I can create an online fitness game called "vagabond spirit." Basically, your vagabond spirit decides to take off on its own. For each step you take in the real world, your vagabond spirit takes a step in the vagabond world.

To make the game fun, I wanted to include an online exchange that the vagabonds use to buy and sell stuff as they voyage around the globe. The market would work as follows: Your spirit would earn tokens as it walked about. The spirit could use the tokens to buy items in the game.

The game will include collectibles and other fun things.

Here is the problem: If my local state determines that the exchange is gambling; they can send me to jail. If the SEC determines that the exchange is a security; the SEC can take everything I own and I will probably go to jail.

The laws are vague. Simply creating a game where imaginary creatures invest in imaginary things might be illegal.

So, I've been reading up on local and federal security laws and getting really depressed in the process. Reports say that becoming a broker takes several hundred hours of work with examines and what not and costs up to $100,000. I didn't see a full break down of that figure.

Securities are actually regulated through "public/private partnerships" often called "self regulating organizations." These SROs are essentially unelected governing bodies with the power to impose enormous fines.

There are SROs in each state and some national ones such as FINRA.

FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) bills itself as "a not-for-profit organization dedicated to investor protection and market integrity."

During school I was indoctrinated to see all not-for-profits as good and profit. Little brain cells still fire when I hear that phrase.

FINRA is a Non-Profit. Profit is bad; therefore FINRA is good.

As I read more and more and more about the organization I get shivers down my spine. This group is pure unadulterated evil.

It is a non-elected entity that has control over any defined security that people create in the United States. If you create a security to share equity in a project, they can and will bear down on you for trading an unregistered security.

It appears that they spew out billions of dollars in fines. When I refreshed the screen, they reported a paltry $2.75 million fine because a company failed to fill out forms U4 or U5.

Goodness knows, the world cannot function without forms U4 and U5.

It appears that the company "LPL" is a billion dollar firm that has been a broker since 1973. They have a legion of lawyers on call. It looks like FINRA also issued a $10 million fine because they did not report some large cash withdrawals to the anti-money-laundering system.

The reports says they paid the fine through an "Acceptance, Waiver and Consent." There is no trial or recourse. Companies get huge fines from an unelected body and they are so cowed by the system that they just pay up.

The Founders of this nation must be reeling in torment every time this group of unelected tyrants acts.

As I read about the way that government does security regulation I am overcome with a feeling that the system is outright evil. For example, the huge costs needed to become a broker forces brokers to engage in activities designed to pay back the huge cost. If you had to pay $100,000 to become a broker; you would be scrambling to engage in activities to pay that enormous sum back ... wouldn't you?

The regulations create self fulfilling prophecies while failing to protect the public from the cons of the big banks.

This "public private partnership" (aka an un-elected bureaucracy) is regulating the securities industry in ways that concentrates wealth into just a few hands while impoverishing the people at large.