A FRIENDLY POLEMIC Tear this temple down!

Ha, ha, ha!, so many arguments against an absurd statement that I never made.

I never said that brokers (and the transactions they intermediate) need to be eliminated.

In my previous reply "My honor, Mr. Anastasiu!", I wrote:

"But will he succeed (our note - Sobolewski) in ordering brokers to abandon the monopoly of their transactions, to allow direct transactions between citizens?"

The meaning is clear: "to abandon the monopoly of their trades" does not mean that brokers should commit suicide, but that the direct trades, unintermediated (for unlisted companies, or for those issued by those companies that were forcefully listed, that have concluded no agreements with the registrar/depositor or companies that have been hanging around for no reason at all, on the Rasdaq, which have only seem 2-3 trades in all that time - thousands of companies were in that situation and still are).

Mr. Anastasiu, aside from the fact that I have persistently and clearly presented by ideas for years, starting with 1995 (and as a result, it's not normal for you not to know what I stand for), in the comments to the article which appeared the day before yesterday (comments which you have read and to which you are responding today), there is also the clarification, addressed to Doru Nicolaescu: "that means that the existent informal market operating around the organized and regulated markets is not forbidden.

That is what is really important!

What I am not sure that you (our note - Doru Nicolaescu) have ever said, is the relationship that should exist between the natural, informal and the regulated markets.

I doubt it has ever been said that the informal market feeds the regulated market, just like the roots bring the sap to the trunk.

I don't think I've ever claimed that without the natural market, the regulated markets would wither and die.

I don't think I've said that the solution for the market of the BSE (which is withered and dead) would be to revive the natural, informal market".

Thus, it is clear that my ideas do not in any way include the generalized use of the unregulated market and the elimination of the organized market, but rather, they view the unregulated market as a gateway for accessing the capital market, accessible to any citizen, to allow them to educate themselves on the financial sector, and perhaps, to move on to the next level, that of the regulated markets, which is otherwise too high, too inaccessible.

Similarly, the issuers traded on the informal market become acquainted with the issues of the market, without any reporting obligation (others than the ones required by the law of Commercial Companies, where the regulatory institution isn't the CNVM/the ASF, but the court) and if they deem it beneficial and opportune, they can decide, in the General Shareholder Meeting, to get listed on a regulated/organized market, which they choose themselves.

Which they can leave at any time, if the General Shareholder Meeting decides to.

It is common sense.

It is normal.

It is legal.

How come these three things can't permeate the stock market community, after decades?!

How come even today, after eighteen years, you claim you don't understand what I am saying, dear Virgil?!

After the entire press campaign carried out for years, after countless direct, face to face talks, after the undeniable failure of your monopolistic conceptions?

A failure that everyone acknowledges, including yourself, but for which nobody (yourself included) wants to admit why it happened.

Because the reasons behind that failure are common sense.

Sometime in 1999, I have conducted a study on the companies listed on the Rasdaq and I found out that after two years of "successful" operation, 400 of the companies listed there, had never been traded; 1,500 companies (including the aforementioned 400) had been traded once or twice (trades with volumes of 40 shares each, which is basically zero).

I published the study and I asked for the companies that were in this position or in similar positions to be delisted (according to our study, it should have delisted about 4,0000 companies).

At the time, I saw the brokers' opposition of brokers to the idea, with the support they had from the CNVM of the criminal Boboc.

I was ridiculed.

After almost one decade, Spanish consultants in a program of the EU have recommended to the CNVM led by Gabriela Anghelache to delist companies from the Rasdaq, about as many as the ones which we had counyed.

I was present in the conference room of the BSE at the Modern Hotel, when Mrs. Anghelache, who was on the presidium, was mercilessly attacked by the brokers present in the room, who asked her to stop the delisting process, which had begun.

It was greed: but what if someone were to make a trade on any of those passive companies?

Meaning the brokers would miss out on those fees?!

To my stupefaction, the president of the CNVM backed down, acting timidly.

I spoke out against the entire room and I took the liberty of admonishing Mrs. Anghelache, for shyness.

I was booed.

I picked up my stuff and left; on the threshold, I turned to the people in the room and told them: "Stay among yourselves!"

And that's how it is.

You are left among yourselves.

And you don't like it.

For the short term greed, you killed your long term business.

You are looking for solutions with roadshows, trading on margin, advertising, Sobolewski, staff structure and corporate governance.

OK, do it!

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NOTE 1

The entire response of Mr. Virgil Anastasiu refers to something that I do not endorse.

I've heard the same "arguments" 17-18 years ago as well.

All the arguments against securing securities are applicable to banknotes as well; that doesn't stop us from having cash in our pockets.

Money counterfeiters get arrested; what would be the difference in the case of forged securities?

The cost of securing and printing securities are borne by the issuer; the decision is made by the General Shareholder Meeting, according to the law 31 of companies.

It is their job, not the government's, not that of the CNVM/ASFs, not of brokers.

Just like it is the job of the General Shareholder Meeting to decide whether the company is public and distinctly, (not related to this) to decide whether it gets listed on a regulated market or not.

According to the law, a public company can remain unlisted, just like it can conduct a public offer and then decide it doesn't want to be a public company.

Details which are essential to the functioning of the capital market, which have been crushed under the boot heel brokers' short term interests.

I've lived long enough to see these acts of obtuseness and baseness come around.

I don't feel any joy over it.

On the contrary, I feel bad that it has come to this.

As proof that I am sorry, I write what I write and I support this polemic and I am willing to provide as many clarifications as possible, if asked to do so.

Although I had had enough.

NOTE 2

The punch line in the beginning of your response, Mr. Virgil Anastasiu, is especially good because some of the historical details give it meanings which I don't think you have suspected, and most certainly you wouldn't enjoy.

During the time of Christ, the money changers in the temple weren't mere merchants, they were there legitimately, allowing the Judaic ritual of sacrifice.

The animals to be sacrificed were not brought there by their owners, they were supposed to be bought from the Temple.

It was the temple that would sell them, but not in exchange for Roman money, but for the Jewish currency of internal circulation.

As a result, the Jews were forced to resort to the services of the money changers in the Temple, who, in their position of financial intermediaries, would exchange the Roman money for the temple's money, which the believers would then use to buy the animals to be sacrificed.

"And he found sitting in the temple the ones who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers." (John 2:14)

Jesus' anger went against these "brokers", not because they would defile the sacred space of the Temple, (as this is usually construed"Stop turning my father's house into a market" John 2-16), but because he viewed them as a symbol of the system:

"Jesus told them: < Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days! >" (Ioan 2:19)

I don't want to force this interpretation, but it remains likely that it wasn't against the sacred trade that Jesus was angry, but rather against the difficulties which prevent the faithful from accessing the sacred ritual.

In other words, Mr. Virgil Anastasiu, Jesus asked for direct access to God, not through "brokers".

And God was in His Body.

That is clarified immediately, in John 2: 20-21:

"20The Jews then said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?

But He was speaking of the temple of His body."

The two currencies - that of the Romans and that of the Temple - are also found in the famous line "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21), but here, the accent falls on the anti-zealot movement, which, by promoting the non-payment of taxes, was seeking rebellion against the Roman occupation.

In here, the two currencies symbolize adapting to the status quo, to help the religion survive - a tactically sound advice (otherwise, the Jews, and especially the zealots, which were its hard core faction, would have been willing to commit mass suicide, which actually happened later, at Masada).

The Temple's currency symbolizes the Jews' religious autonomy, which the Romans had been forced to grant to them (like nowhere else in the Empire), because otherwise, they couldn't collect the taxes and couldn't control the province.

So dear Virgil, direct access.

I don't think you like it.