STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING!

Apologies for the audio; it was quite windy - I have cleaned it up as best I can....

From the WSJ:

Liberals are making a bid to restore the "public option," ObamaCare's most controversial and destructive inspiration. Some 18 Senators as we went to pressled by Colorado's Michael Bennet and growing to include New York's Chuck Schumer on Thursdayhave endorsed slipping this government-run insurance entitlement in the reconciliation process that would let Democrats abuse Senate rules to hustle ObamaCare into law with 50 votes. Vehemence among House progressives is also at a fever pitch, though it always is.

What, specifically, is wrong with a "public option?"

The Journal does us the favor of admitting the problem:

Rational Democrats killed the public option because it is hated by the insurers that will be driven out of business by its subsidy advantage, by the doctors and hospitals that will be forced to accept its below-market rates, and by the taxpayers who will get stuck with the bill.

Ah.

So you mean Medicare and Medicaid currently bill at below-market rates, and by doing so constitute a cost-shifting subsidy that is then forced upon both privately insured people and those with no insurance (but who do have money), who get to at gunpoint pick up the bill for those who are on these government programs?

So given this fact, where, may I ask, are the Republican "free market" calls for ending this practice?  For making it unlawful to bill two different people differing amounts for the same procedure, drug, or device, with the difference in cost predicated only on who pays the bill?

I thought Republicans were "free market" people?  That they believed in a fair, free, competitive marketplace?

How can you have such a thing when you have a bunch of government thugs that force private parties to pick up the cost of subsidized care not through generalized taxes, which are quite visible and against which the people can vote, but instead by co-opting so-called "private insurers" who then take the heat for policies that are forced down their throats by these very same government goons?

There are only two solutions to this health care mess:

1. The plan I put forward previously, or something darn similar to it.  Barring differential billing predicated only on who's cutting the checks, forcing all "insurance" companies to accept anyone who wishes to buy into their plan under the same terms as they offer to anyone else, barring as a matter of federal law cost-shifting for those who show up without insurance and real tort reform.  Do those four things, plus drop all protections against "reimportation" (in other words, if you buy it, it's yours, and you may sell it to anyone you wish) and a huge change in the health care cost picture would instantaneously occur.
   
   
2. A true single-payer system.  Vastly inferior to the above, because such a system rations by definition, and provides little or no incentive for people to manage their own costs and health.  This is, in essence, the destruction of the capitalist free-market health system.

But we haven't had a capitalist, free-market health system in this country since the 1960s and early 70s.  The day when you last wrote a check directly to your doctor for care as a routine part of your visit was when it died.

The day when you have a "prescription drug card" and paid $5, $10 or $20 for your drug, no matter whether it cost $25 or $250 if bought in cash, was the day it died.

The day when you got charged through cost-shifting of Granny's care to you, her drug cost to you, and the illegal alien who shot himself in the foot with a nail gun - is the day our capitalist health system died.

We cannot recover our capitalist health system without addressing these points.  The four-point plan, along with federal legal strictures against anyone trying to bar someone's "first sale" rights, will restore our capitalist health system.

If we can't do that, and I suspect we cannot because we refuse to hold politicians to account for being bribed wholesale while we all demand something for nothing, then the only rational alternative remaining available to us is to ditch the current financial rape room party run by the "medical establishment" and expose the entire mess as a line item on the federal budget, so at least we know exactly how badly we're all being bent over the table each and every year.

That has the potential to lead to people being voted out of office somewhere down the road.

I don't like where Obama's proposals are going in this regard, but if there is to be a move toward forced "insurance" for everyone then there must be the choice for individuals to buy into a public option where the prices are known and so are the standards.

Without this we will continue to be serially violated by the health insurance and care companies, who have ramped up prices by a double-digit percentage - doubling them on average every five years - while claimed "inflation" has been in the low single-digit percentages.

Those are the only two choices folks, and if I can't get a capitalist system then I want and will support a Canadian one, with all its faults.

I'm probably going to draw a lot of fire for this, but I believe the US Supreme Court made the right decision yesterday:

WASHINGTONA divided Supreme Court struck down decades-old limits on corporate political expenditures, potentially reshaping the 2010 election landscape by permitting businesses and unions to spend freely on commercials for or against candidates.

President Barack Obama attacked the ruling and said it gave "a green light to a new stampede of special-interest money in our politics," particularly "big oil, Wall Street banks, health-insurance companies and the other powerful interests" that "drown out the voices of everyday Americans." He pledged to work with lawmakers to craft a "forceful response."

What sort of "forceful response" might that be?  The use of force (that is, the government's stash of guns), right?  "Do as we say, or we (maybe literally) shoot you!"

Hmmm....

Let me make my viewpoint clear on this, lest a whole swarm of lemmings start trying to put words in my mouth:

• "Congress shall make no law.... or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" - This is very clear.  Laws restricting speech are unconstitutional.  Period.
  
  
• Money is not speech.  However, money buys amplifiers in all of their forms.  If you stand on a street corner and talk, people within 10 feet can hear you.  If you buy a $2 megaphone people within 30 feet - in front of you - can hear you.  If you buy a $100 powered megaphone, people can hear you to a range of perhaps 100'.
  
  
• So long as I don't drown out other people's ability to speak and be heard I should be able to buy and use as big an amplifier as I would like (and can afford.)  This is the old libertarian (little "L") principle: I can swing my arms around all I want so long as my fist does not connect with your nose.

As a consequence if you honor the black-letter law as expressed in The First Amendment, you are led to the inescapable conclusion that The US Supreme Court came to the correct decision - whether it is personally distasteful or not.

The true test of whether you believe in liberties and rights is not whether you support them when they coincide with what you'd like to see happen - it is whether you support them when they are adverse to what you would prefer.

But with that said, I do believe there is a serious problem with campaigns and politicians - and corruption thereof.

And here, I have a solution.

Public employees - that is, politicians - should not be able to receive a campaign donation (in any form) from anyone except an actual constituent - that is, someone who is qualified and registered to vote in their district or state.

Let the corporations (and individuals), along with PACs, Unions and others buy all the issue and even candidate ads they want - so long as they honestly identify who is funding the speech in question.

But bar all public employees from receiving any campaign contribution from anyone other than a natural person who is registered to vote in the area represented by that particular politician, with violators subject to felony prosecution.  If such an act is traced to a corporation the firm's charter is revoked.

Isn't it funny how we never address the actual problem - the fact that candidates have huge war chests funded by corporations (directly and indirectly) and instead try to focus on trying to restrict people's desire to speak - a right that is guaranteed under our Constitution?

Solve the problem instead of allowing politicians to play Kabuki Theater with this (very legitimate) issue.

My "Reform to Kill Retail F/X" article got a few people's blood pressure up... 

It appears that my central point wasn't well-communicated based on the comments I've received (including in places that I don't have "commenting" accounts), so I'll try again.

Here's the central point:

The brokerages all claim to be "commission-free" but this is not really true - the fees charged, instead of being in the form of a traditional commission, are in the form of "pips" or a spread, and on a position held open the spread is charged again and again as a "rollover fee." 

The key item is that since this is an over-the-counter market you do not know what the actual market price is at any given point in time, and therefore you do not know what the commission is that you're being charged as it is (intentionally) hidden from you.

The number of people who said "oh you only pay the spread once" are sadly delusional.  In a regulated exchange market where national best bid and offer (NBBO) is visible to you you can typically "split the baby" between bid and offer, or even occasionally get filled "wrong way" in the spread as someone will occasionally "pick off" your bid or offer.  Further, your broker is typically either restricted or prohibited entirely from taking the other side of the trade internally with you.  In the case of Globex futures the rule is that before your broker can "cross" your order internally (e.g. for another client) they must expose your order to the market for a minimum period of time.

In other words, the broker doesn't get the spread, the guy on the other side of the trade does!  Half the time (on average) that's you. 

This is not true if you can't see the market depth and are in fact buying or selling on whatever spread you're presented by the broker instead of the market itself - he may be (and probably is) padding the actual market spread materially on both sides.

These rules, along with the inherent characteristics of an exchange (that is, the visibility of the bid and offer stack at any given point in time) means that a brokerage has to expose their commission and fee structure - how they actually make money - in a form you can see it.

Again: In an OTC market this is not true as what you are provided as a bid and offer is only what the broker wants you to see and may have no relationship to the best bid and offer they can find in the marketplace.

This is the inherent screw job in OTC derivative contracts - OTC Forex - or OTC anything.  The lack of a regulated, public exchange where you as a customer can see the various bids and offers in the marketplace means that you as a customer will always be disadvantaged as the broker you're doing business with has every incentive to skim from you by concealing the actual market depth.

Of course the Forex Dealers don't want this to change.  They don't like the idea of a regulated exchange for the same reason that the banks don't like that concept for CDS.  Their business model depends on obscurity to maximize their profit, and it is extremely difficult if not impossible for a customer to know whether they're getting a good deal or literally bent over the table in any particular instance.  Further, it is entirely possible for one client to get a "good deal" and another "be screwed" - and again, the lack of an exchange and thus central posting of bids, offers and trades makes it essentially impossible for you as a customer to know if you're being treated fairly or not.

There is no such thing as a free lunch in lending, brokerage or anything else. 

My central point by weighing in on this issue is that the customer is never in a better position when one has an OTC market with no public visibility versus an open, exchange-traded market and that as I have noted nobody ever works for free.

The bottom line is this: If you can't figure out how someone's making their cut of the transaction your most-reasonable assumption is that the means by which they make their money, and the amount they're skimming off your transaction, is being concealed from you for the express purpose of allowing them to maximize their take.

That is, when you look around and can't find a sucker you need only find the closest mirror to locate the person who's on the short end of the stick.

Slithering along in the proposed rule bin is a nasty little ditty from the CFTC that will fundamentally change how retail FX (forex) business is conducted - and, likely, end its appeal.

The proposal does a number of things, not all of them bad.  Retail FX shops have been subject to massive abuse and near-absent enforcement, including front-running.  While "bucket shops" ("dealers" that don't actually trade but rather have you betting against the house) have been broadly illegal whether it goes on these days or not is difficult to discern.

In addition you've all seen the ads - both online and on ToutTV - pumping OTC Forex trading as a means to "make money" in a trading market that is open nearly 24x7.

Chief among the risks is the fact that these products are in fact an over-the-counter market - that is, there is no central party exchange and counterparty.  As a consequence counterparty risk exists in these accounts along with the risk of business failure of your broker.  These accounts are often marketed and sold to people who have little appreciation for the risk that the extreme leverage (in many cases 100:1 or higher!) offered to clients can pose.  The brokerages all claim to be "commission-free" but this is not really true - the fees charged, instead of being in the form of a traditional commission, are in the form of "pips" or a spread, and on a position held open the spread is charged again and again as a "rollover fee."  As such, unlike a stock, option or futures trade where one pays to enter and again to exit (but not to hold) a FX position is inherently a short-term trade, as you will be charged simply for the privilege of holding your position open over a period of time.

Indeed, while nearly all OTC Forex brokers use language in their advertising that suggests very low (or absent) commissions in point of fact commissions can be quite high and in order to control those costs you MUST trade on very short time frames.  If you short the Euro/USD cross, for example, and expect a 100 pip (one cent) move on your trade, you might pay three pips of spread to enter and another three to exit, for a total "vig" of six pips.  That's a 6% commission!  Worse, if you hold over a rollover you will get hit with another spread and your commission goes up even more.  To put this in perspective I can buy or sell 1,000 shares of a $100 stock (total "notional" value of $100,000) for $10 at many discount brokerages.  If I'm playing for a $1 move on that $100 stock I pay $20 (round trip) in an attempt to make $1,000 - a commission of 2% on the expected move.  In the futures market I can put on a single /6E contract (Euro/Dollar futures) for under $3 in commissions (each way) with an initial margin of $4,050 and a move per-pip of $12.50.  This means I can trade for the same 100 pip move for a cost of $6 on a potential profit of $1,250, or ONE TENTH the percentage cost of commission of a retail FX shop!  Most brokerages of course try to quote commissions on the "notional value" of the position you buy or sell - that's an intentional misdirection as the correct way to compute the "vig" (or cost of your action) is the percentage cost on the anticipated profit on the trade.  The bottom line: RETAIL FX COMMISSIONS ARE QUITE HIGH COMPARED TO OTHER FORMS OF TRADING AND THOSE COMMISSIONS MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO CONSISTENTLY PROFIT AS A TRADER IN THIS MARKET.

As such OTC Forex trading is NOT suitable for virtually ALL persons.  Indeed, it is the ultimate "day trading" vehicle, both due to the severe cost disadvantages that apply to positions that are held open along with the fact that most "FX brokerages" offer leverage of 100:1 or more.  That is, a 1% move in the currency pair you're trading can and will, if it goes the wrong way, wipe you out.

In addition to all of the above there is margin risk that is often unappreciated.  While all brokers (in all markets) will typically try to protect themselves by reserving the right to close a position that reduces your account equity to zero (rather than generate a margin call and wait for you to meet it) there is no guarantee that a rapid and/or disorderly move will not gap over the "zero line" and leave you with negative equity.  This can lead to a situation where you can easily lose more money than you have deposited with the brokerage.  Large, unexpected and violent moves in FX markets are relatively common, especially around news events, and even though such moves often reverse quickly they frequently result in accounts being destroyed and liquidated unexpectedly.  This risk goes up dramatically as offered leverage increases.

Now you might think from the above that I "hate" Forex.

You'd be wrong.

Forex is a very difficult market to consistently make money in, mostly due to the "pip spread" form of commissions.  The spread looks small but in fact when combined with the high degree of leverage offered it is quite large and it is also charged on a recurring, not only on a trade entry and exit, basis. 

Nonetheless for those who wish to speculate on an intraday basis, using very high degrees of leverage and accepting the sizable risk associated with this sort of trading, OTC Forex is a reasonable way to speculate on currency moves and, if one has a full and fair understanding and acceptance of the risks I have no quarrel with it.

The CFTC's proposal will tighten up regulatory supervision substantially and to the degree that it stems the abuses, including irresponsible marketing practices, improving capital adequacy supervision and providing a means of addressing the "shark" problem (misleading, abusive and unreasonable acts by some retail FX brokerages) it is a good thing.

The retail FX industry is rather aghast at the regulatory requirements including assigning liability for improper actions or business practices.  To this I say "Awwwwwwwww!"  The retail FX marketplace has for years been rife with complaints about various FX brokerages with allegations including soliciting people who have no business trading in this market, front-running, spread manipulation and even blatant bucket shop operations.  How much of this is true I have no means to determine (I don't trade FX with the "retail folks", preferring instead to use an established real broker that deals in other products and therefore has some generalized skin - and a reputation - to protect) but that some of these abuses have happened is a matter of record.  (With that said, many who put on a bad trade and lose due to their own overuse of leverage or simply making a bad decision look for someone to blame other than themselves for their losses, so I am typically skeptical of such claims absent evidence.)

But buried in the proposal is one item that has the potential to kill retail FX as we know it today:

Proposed Regulation 5.9(a) would require each RFED and each FCM that engages in retail forex transactions, in advance of any such transaction, to collect from the retail forex customer a security deposit (in cash or in financial instruments that meet the requirements of Regulation 1.25) equal to ten percent of the notional value of the retail forex transaction, ten percent of the notional value of short retail forex options in addition to the premium received, or the full premium received for long options, as the case may be. Pursuant to proposed Regulation 5.9(b), the RFED or FCM would be required to collect additional security deposit or to liquidate the retail forex customers position if the amount of security deposit collected fails to meet the requirements of paragraph (a).

That paragraph effectively limits leverage to 10:1 by imposing a hard margin cap of 10% on cash positions (long or short) - or a net leverage reduction of 90%.

Now I'll go out on a limb here and say that most Forex traders, if limited to 10:1 leverage, will leave.  They will either trade something else or go somewhere else.  Of course the bleating has begun already, with people claiming that traders will move to Europe where they can obtain leverage as high as 400:1.

Well folks, frankly, if you're playing with 400:1 leverage you're juggling nuclear balance sheet destroyers and sooner or later one will explode and blow your fool head off.  I simply cannot countenance such a thing.

Is 10:1 a reasonable limit?  We seem to think it is in other parts of the market - in commodities and futures generally, most of which offer somewhere between 6:1 and 10:1.  As such the CFTC's proposal appears to be in line with other regulated markets, and on its face appears reasonable.

But there's no doubt that this has (and will) anger a huge number of retail FX traders and dealers and will, without a doubt, engender more calls of "you're going to destroy us if you limit things like this!"

Indeed, some of that has already come, including this article from Turnkey Trading Partners (who alerted me to the proposal - it had flown under my radar originally.) 

My view on the regulatory proposal is that there is both good and bad contained herein.  I believe:

• Regulation of business practices and demanding capital adequacy tests and strict liability for business practices (especially when it comes to solicitations and/or things like front-running and other abusive practices) is a good thing.  The Retail FX market has been a shark tank since its inception and muzzling some of the sharks will make the market more fair for everyone.
  
  
• Few people truly understand the commission structure and how much it actually costs to trade FX.  I have seen NO retail FX shop that explains the commission structure in a fashion that I consider adequately clear - and that's being polite.
  
  
• The leverage limit may be overbearing.  The need for some sort of leverage limit isn't really open to question - there is such a need.  Whether 10:1 is the right number is another question.

On balance I agree that it is long overdue to clean up the FX market shark tank and shoot some of the Tiger Sharks that have been devouring retail customers who have an inadequate understanding of the risks they are accepting by playing in this market, the fee and commission structure and its implications, and how this, along with the rollover format of fees and commissions make it very difficult to consistently profit in this marketplace.

Perhaps the leverage limits will trash the retail FX market and drive it offshore.  But I believe there's an argument to be made that with the alternatives available for the most-common currency crosses already (e.g. the /6E Euro/Dollar cross futures contract) there are alternative products that have significantly lower costs embedded in their trading and as such the impact of these regulatory changes could be to bring in line with regulated futures contracts the fee and cost structure found in the OTC marketplace.  If it instead drives the market overseas or destroys it entirely what have we lost as traders when I can get the same exposure to the market for one tenth of the commission expense? 

Finally, why is the retail FX brokerage community whining about this proposal instead of adjusting their cost and business models to bring commissions more in line with the regulated marketplace that consistently provides users with the same exposure to the market at a fraction of the cost?  If you trade retail FX maybe it's time for you to investigate the regulated /6(x) futures contracts instead and cut your transaction costs down to a more reasonable percentage of your anticipated profits.  Yes, you'll have to post margin and if you're a "very small" trader you probably won't be able to participate.  But if you can't post margin on even one contract in that market the better question is "can you really afford to be trading these products - a highly-speculative instrument in which you can lose everything you put up and then some - at all?"

Now there's something to think about.