Japan Nikkei down 14% - What is Ron Paul position on trading halts?

[TheNcredibleEgg]

I've never heard Ron Paul enunciate anything related to free market and halting trading during panics - just wondered if anyone knew? Or what your opinion is?

Mine personally, I have no problem with trading halts. But I've never really given it much thought in a free market sense. Yes, I know anyone can individually just halt trading themselves - and you don't need gov't mandated halts - but dunno.

[juleswin]

I've never heard Ron Paul enunciate anything related to free market and halting trading during panics - just wondered if anyone knew? Or what your opinion is?

Mine personally, I have no problem with trading halts. But I've never really given it much thought in a free market sense. Yes, I know anyone can individually just halt trading themselves - and you don't need gov't mandated halts - but dunno.
who exactly is supposed to do the halting? the owners of the company of govt bureaucrats? I am no Paul spokesman but I have a feeling he not going to side with the govt shutdown.

[Kludge]

I doubt he considers it detrimental enough to try stopping. If you day-trade, you'll know it's usually best to trade against the headlines. People hear something bad/good, panic/rejoice, and make stupid decisions. When the gov't (or private companies, ideally) halts trading, they're forcing people to take a step back and think about what they're contemplating doing.

I'm not trying to argue it's moral, but at the very least, I don't think the issue will affect RP's campaign in any way, and it'd probably be unwise to campaign on it. The libertarian position obviously would be to revoke the government's power to make such a mandate and leave it in the hands of NYSE/etc. owners.

[Maximus]

I think the stock exchange itself should be able to halt business in true emergencies. You can make it a condition of being listed on their market that the market reserves the right to suspend itself in the case of extreme natural disasters/man made catastrophes

[TheNcredibleEgg]

who exactly is supposed to do the halting? the owners of the company of govt bureaucrats? I am no Paul spokesman but I have a feeling he not going to side with the govt shutdown.

Yeah. You're right - the gov't should not impose trading halts. People can do that for themselves quite simply.

This is probably an issue most (like me) have never given any thought and just don't realize there is no need for gov't intervention. It just mucks up the process. Because some people might panic in error - it's not the job of the gov't to protect them. (Heck, they might be right to panic.) And, of course, some people adept enough will buy into that panic. (They are usually right.)

[BarryDonegan]

Banks used to do this on their own before they had an alleged "lender of last resort."