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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Senesac who wrote (98414)	2/28/2007 12:15:24 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 122087

Joe, would you agree that a fair test of whether you truly own something is whether you are able to legally sell it? For example, I can legally sell my car that I've paid off, but I can't sell my neighbor's car. Have you ever not been able to sell shares of stock in your brokerage account because your broker said, oops, you don't own them? Have you ever known anyone who has had this problem that can be documented? I doubt it. Owning and possessing are two different animals. While you might think of money as being a possession like a car, it's only value is what it represents, not what it is. For example, if your bank account says you have $10,000 in it, do you consider that you don't really have $10,000 if you can't go to the bank and withdraw it in cash? OK, maybe if just you ask for the money, you'll get it. But say every single person with an account at your bank demanded their money in cash. Do you know what percent the average bank keeps in cash on hand? It's a mere 10% (I looked it up: in.answers.yahoo.com ). In other words, not having 10,000 real dollars at your bank does not indicate you don't really own $10,000. To keep a fast moving securities marketplace so people can trade on-line, shares have to be kept electronically. That's why we have the DTCC. Save freezing time and spending a year to balance out every account there, the only real way to know if you truly own something is to see if you can sell it. The notion that there are counterfeit shares out there never seems to lose its appeal simply because the people making this claim are asking someone to disprove it. Disprove I didn't have lunch on Mars today. Until we can find a true poster child for these counterfeit shares, I wouldn't dwell too hard on this until such day as you can't sell what you supposedly have. - Jeff P.S. Expect a counter-reply, replete with insults, from David Patch.