NASDAQ Shutdown Spurs People to Action

The three hour shutdown at NASDAQ today, 22-Aug-2013, prompts me to express my outrage. Even Jim Cramer, CNBC Mad Money is outraged and suggests something should be done by the SEC, the regulators, to figure out what happened.

NASDAQ officials are are keeping eerily quiet about the situation. Since when is it necessary that the NASDAQ, the supposed king of the electronic electronic exchanges keep quiet about the status of the exchange, not issue any statement, not issue any brief "feel good" message that they are doing everything to investigate the cause of the malfunction?  NASDAQ needs to say that they will do everything in their power and technology to get to the bottom of the problem and let it never happen again.

Well, I have a solution that should get their attention.  It happens from the retail investor side.  Call your stock broker, call your mutual fund manager, tell them to SELL EVERYTHING!.  That will get their attention. You cannot trust the action in the markets anymore.  They cater to the big guys, the investment bankers, the hedge funds, the high frequency traders.  The little guys are just raw meat for the grinder.

UNTIL THE MARKETS DEVELOP A NEW SENSE OF ORDER, RESPECT, AND FAIRNESS;

UNTIL THE EXCHANGES FIGURE OUT HOW TO REGULATE HFTs;

UNTIL THE REGULATORS START TO ENFORCE THE RULES;

JUST STOP TRADING.

PULL YOUR MONEY OUT.

TELL YOUR BROKER AND YOUR CONGRESSMEN WHY YOU ARE DOING IT.

More news:

1. NYSE Arca and NASDAQ SIP blame each other for trading "glitch" (link)
2. SEC to meet with Exchange Heads on Sept 12 over Outage (Yahoo)
3. Nasdaq, NYSE at odds on outage cause as SEC seeks facts (Yahoo)

Make a Difference and Become Involved, Let Your Voice Be Heard

Why aren't you more involved with government? Why not get involved with debates about where this country is heading and how we are going to get there? Maybe you don't have the time or you don't know how to write your congress people. Whatever the reason, the best time to stop being passive and start becoming active is right now!
There is now an easy to make your voice heard and hopefully, (just maybe) you too can make a difference: sign a petition on https://petitions.whitehouse.gov where they say:

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”— President Barack Obama

(Mind you, I'm not normally a big fan of Obama, but in this statement I whole-heartedly agree!)

Here are some examples of petitions (there are many more):

Petition	Link
Perform an assayed public audit of all the Treasury’s claimed 8,100 tons of gold and net of swaps, loans and sales.	http://wh.gov/PQxr
Place all members of the government under the same healthcare legislation that ordinary citizens are, with no exceptions.	http://wh.gov/PNgM

That petition to "Perform an assayed public audit of all the Treasury’s claimed 8,100 tons of gold"?

Here is what the folks over at ZeroHedge have to say about it:

That is one petition, which unlike all the other gimmicky wastes of time, that we (and certainly the German people if not the Bundesbank) would wholeheartedly endorse, and one which we hope promptly crosses the 25,000 signature threshold needed for a formal response from the White House.

Sadly, the response will be one denying what the people demand, but it will be interesting to see just what excuse the White House uses to shoot down an idea that is far more worthy of people's time and attention than "minting" coins whose only real symbolism is that America is flat broke.

Let 's change that and all get active!  Sign this petition now!