From: Lawrence York [lawrence.york@ipcfinancial.us] Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 9:37 AM To: rule-comments@sec.gov Subject: (s7-06-04) Proposed Rule on Confirmation Requirements and POS To: US Securities & Exchange Commission From IPC Funds (formerly The WWW Funds) By Its Chairman Lawrence York Your proposed rule to require confirmation and pos disclosures is unnecessary, disadvantageous to small firms and reactive not proactive. First of all, performance is already mandated to be reported net which means that performance data already distills the end result in one number for the consumer to compare results among funds. Please explain why a customer is hurt if one fund has a higher expense ratio than another, but out performs a fund with lower expenses? The real issue may be that you seek to lower fees. If that is the case mandate what may be charged at different asset levels or for various activities. Create another government run entity to offer the services at the cost you mandate. But you disadvantage small funds by your proposal because you seek to prejudice the public about fees when that is not the real issue. As assets under management rise, fees come down. Your proposal will place small funds at a competitive disadvantage because with fewer assets under management they have less margin to reduce fees. It is not the small fund that operates at a 3% expense ratio with $10 mm under management that is the problem or indeed too expensive. It is the $3 billion dollar fund that charges 1.5 -2.5% for the same work that you target. The expense disclosure should be in aggregate dollars not percentage points and perhaps you should mandate margins or maximum costs, even though I think you will agree that is not free enterprise. Moreover just think of the adverse regulation in documenting costs! You also propose to burden small clearing firms, transfer agents and broker dealers who will have to spend to comply with your new regulations when it seems that the problems have been mostly with the large fund complexes and broker dealers. Finally, I say you are reactive instead of proactive, because you are reacting to the trading and incentive programs when what is needed is on-going ethics and morality training. I ask you to consider why public investments (securities) where full disclosures are routinely made and are on file should be different and require this additional disclosure and selling expense than other consumer products, say for example a car. Imagine the Ford dealer greeting the customer and saying: first I must inform you that if you buy a car from me I will make money. And the more options the greater price you pay and higher commission I earn. Secondly, I by law I must inform you that I am incented to sell you a car and if I sell my quota of cars this month I receive a bonus payment from the dealer which could give me 20% higher annual pay. Third, Ford by the way, pays its dealers a year-end incentive bonus for aggregate dealer sales and provides year end rebates to dealers. And fourth, we provide service in case your car needs repairs, but you may be better off going somewhere else because they may repair your car less expensively. And fifth, for the parts we use to repair your car these come from a control affiliate whom we receive compensation and these parts may be obtained from a third party at a lower cost to you. And sixth, our cars may be more expensive than others. You should read consumer reports or other available government data to determine what choice to make and please don’t buy a car until you do this. And by the way, you may be better off buying a Chevy, Toyota, or other manufacturers’ product. Essentially these items are required of those who sell investments. Need they be part of the salesman job beyond providing a document that makes the disclosure? Perhaps a look is needed into removing regulation and disclosure and the focus should be on sales practices. I believe what is needed more is a proactive program of consumer education and business ethics. It should be obvious that when you define freedom by definition you limit it and all this regulation trying to do the thinking for people misses the point. Let’s face it the system is clearly broken because even when corrective action is taken the result is hardly acceptable as evidenced when the accounting scandals ultimately resulted in fines to companies which is the same as fining the shareholders who were already victims. I urge you to go back to the problem and reassess the fix. I think you will conclude that it is not more regulation but education and ethics. Please do not further burden small businesses. We have too many rules and need fewer ones. Work to reduce them so we can more easily comply and our business will grow. Consider in the alternative to impose greater disclosures on the abusers or except small companies. You burden them and that is harmful to all that America is about. Sincerely, Lawrence York