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Page 165
helped to make an honest system out of the Nasdaq marketa system where the public can have respect for the organic integrity of prices. Civilization first began when the strong gave up their right to eat the weak. Today, individuals who buy or sell stocks will no longer feel that they have been victimized.
As you might imagine, the odds were against a person instituting meaningful change in a system as intricate and as replete with trade customs and usage as the Wall Street environment. It takes such great effort to change the status quo that very few were willing to challenge the bureaucracy. Entrenched financial interests are so powerful that no single person could fight them. One would think that it was virtually impossible for one person radically to change a system that evolved over many years by making accommodations to the rich and powerful. But they never anticipated the tenacity of a kid from Brooklyn.
Over the decades substantive and procedural rules, regulations, and trade practices were developed to favor the industry's interests. In reality these systems and courses of dealing performed just fineto the extent that the industry wanted them to perform in maximizing profits on behalf of the market makers and guaranteeing order execution firms maximum payment for order flow. Unfortunately, the public finished a sorry second, because the industry was able to benefit from these ingrained practices denied to the public on a regular basis. Too many people were making extraordinary sums from the system to have any desire to change it. Those who clawed their way to the top passed increasingly more restrictive and self-protective rules to enhance their advantageous position. Effecting change would be like the oil cartel supporting alternative energy projects.
It took an issue of significant magnitude to give me the incentive and motivation to fight the NASD and risk everything I owned for change that would benefit my interests as well as the interests of the investing public. My desire to see DAET flourish throughout the financial markets compelled me to risk the time and money, and face attacks on both my

 
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