Regulators use tonne of bricks when a slap on wrist would do

The Securities and Futures Commission has me on its e-mail circulation list, for which I thank them. But there are times when I cannot congratulate them on e-mails they send me about malefactors they have nabbed. There were three such notices on Friday. Here they are:

'The District Court today jailed two warrant traders ... for 33 and 36 months in the first indictable prosecution for manipulating derivative warrants.'

Thence followed stern words from the judge - 'the court cannot pass the buck and should be very tough by passing sufficiently deterrent sentences against any market manipulators'.

That's right, your honour, don't pass the buck. If it's current fashion to come down hard on people for any crime that features the word 'market', then be a good follower of fashion and let's not having any buck-passing about standing back for a perspective on things.

Three years? Is this for real? I mean, will someone please tell me how much blood was splattered at the scene of this crime and how many severed limbs were scattered about. Did someone haul out a gun and threaten to shoot the bystanders? How much jewellery was stolen? Was someone raped?

What these two fellows did was toss some warrants back and forth between each other to work up an illusion of trading volume and see if they could get anyone to rise to it. They acted a lie about real public demand, it's true. Now let's have every car dealer in town jailed.