[phire]

The goal of the SEC is to ensure confidence in the stock market, to protect the stock market and the whole economy in general.

They were primarily setup to avoid another great depression. They are operating under the assumption that the great depression was caused by a general loss of confidence in the stock market (and other types of investments) and that if they insure confidence, it will never happen again.

They don't really care if an individual investor loses money.

But pump&dump schemes prey on inexperienced noob investors and are very effective at pulling all their money away to experienced pump&dumpers. The SCE are worried that many noobs will experience such a scam and decide that investing isn't for them. This deprives the sock market of funds which the SEC considers bad.

As for GME and WSB... well the SEC are in a bit of a tough spot.

In general the SEC wants the stock price to match reality, and WSB's short-squeezes are clearly violating that. But if the SEC does anything to drive the share price back to normality then it looks like they are siding with big hedge funds and that really reduces the confidence of retail investors.

I suspect they might eventually enforce a technical solution which provides live updates to the current status short positions. Such updates will mean that short squeezes can operate on the actual intelligence of short positions, rather than the wild speculation they are currently operating on. On the flip side, shorters will use the live updates to know when they are at risk of a short squeese.

[lilott8]

So is what they're doing some sick joke? I doubt people couldn't care less about the damage done by functionally worthless companies. People are pissed at the perception of manipulation by wall street. This is hilariously myopic. People aren't upset about losing money. They're upset that the game _looks_ (and ostensibly is) rigged. That is where all the lack of confidence stems.

[oarsinsync]

> People aren't upset about losing money.

I’m sure this is true for a minority of participants in the stock market, and I’m sure this is true for a minority of retail investors.

I don’t believe for a second that this is true for a majority of retail money in the market. Most people care very much about losing money.

Just because there’s a bunch of noisy people making news about YOLOing their savings away, doesn’t mean they’re the majority. They’re just noisy and newsworthy.

[devin]

Nailed it. The people upset by minor regulatory intervention to ensure fair markets are as ruthless as anyone in this equation, but they play the victim. If you knowingly manipulate the price of garbage stock for personal gain, you're not a victim, you're an asshole.

[simonh]

But, but, but they're restricting their freedom to be assholes and their personal liberties to do asshole things to people!

[eru]

> The goal of the SEC is to ensure confidence in the stock market, to protect the stock market and the whole economy in general.

Well, that's the official goal.

In practice, public choice theory suggests some additional motivations.

[tarsinge]

That make sense as a mission but that announcement alone will have the opposite effect. The last few weeks proved a lot of people that the game is rigged against retail investors. The is not what is needed to restore confidence, and stop the move to crypto.