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Edgar Project & SEC
- To: georgia@hr.house.gov
- Subject: Edgar Project & SEC
- From: Randolph Ross <reross@tribeca.ios.com>
- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 22:09:01 -0400
The Honorable Newt Gingrich, Speaker House of Representatives Washington, D.C.
Mr. Speaker:
I am writing regarding The Edgar Project and in support of Mr. Carl Malamud's letter (8/4/95,cc:you) to SEC Chairman Mr. Arthur Levitt. Mr. Malamud is president of The Internet Multicasting Service.
The closing portion of the letter addresses the nub of the issue: a fervent advocacy that the SEC itself assumes a proactive responsibility for diligent maintenance and expansion of the Internet test-based system of disseminating corporations' public information on file. Edgar, under current auspices, will terminate 10/1/95.
I wholeheartedly share your minimalist views of government. I hold attendant opinions regarding improving productivity. Members of the private sector suffer the risk of extinction otherwise. Such a fate is just, and serves the commonweal. This law, as you appreciate however, seems to have an inverse application in the public sector. I need not dwell.
My support of Mr. Malamud's specific position rests on an empirical tripod:
1) The conventional, direct process of extracting information from the SEC is extremely time consuming and cryptic. Try telephoning and you get voice-mail menus, often electronically bouncing you back to where you started. If you experience the good fortune of actually contacting the appropriate individual, you still must wait two weeks and pay substantial copy charges. A visit to your regional SEC library yields nothing if the focus of your interest is domiciled outside of that branch's territory.
2) The status-quo alternative in the private sector (Bloomberg, S&P Compustat, etc.) is a) prohibitively expensive, even for many small and mid-sized firms and b) must source the SEC for the information anyway, so substantial delays exist between when a company files the information and when the SEC makes it available through this private pipeline.
3) The Internet, contrary to some criticism, represents a long-term cutting-edge proposition with an expanding, *BROAD* base of users. Check the statistics, demographic and otherwise. New users are signing-on everyday. A majority of users are in the work force. The substantial number of college-age users is a leading indicator of future activity. These individuals will be conducting much of the entry-level, primary research that (within a couple of years) will provide value-added information to their employers.
If you want additional economic evidence to buttress point "3," study the vote of investor dollars and Netscape's recent initial public offering. (Netscape is navigating software for the Internet.) The offer was vastly over-subscribed at a price almost twice that of the preliminary range of projection. This is not the invested wealth of 20-year-olds who hack and surf for pleasure.
The SEC's embrace and expansion of Edgar thus would improve government efficiency, pragmatically broaden the audience of informed investment decision-makers (thus benefitting all by allocating capital flows to where the highest returns exist), and serve a rapidly expanding universe of fluent Internet users.
I can think of worse ways to spend my hard-earned tax dollars, and am writing to *you* because of your *elected* status, in contrast to the once-removed, appointed variety.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I urge you to exercise your demonstrated leadership in addressing this issue.
Respectfully,
________________________ Randolph E. Ross <reross@tribeca.ios.com>
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