Can Footnotes Be “Sexy”?

Recently, I blogged about the value of footnotes. Given the interest in the topic – my poll revealed that 40% always read them; 35% do if they’re in the mood and 20% only if they’re in a SEC release or court opinion – I thought you may find this footnote by SEC Commissioner Rob Jackson in his statement in connection with the SEC’s adoption of the final rules regarding Regulation ATS (Alternative Trading Systems) a few months ago deserving of your attention:

But as millions of ordinary American investors approach retirement, they are increasingly seeking the safety and stability of fixed income. And those markets are still in the dark ages, costing retirees precious savings.[2] Stock markets are sexy, but fixed income will fund ordinary investors’ retirements.[3] It’s time for the Commission to bring common-sense reforms like those we’re finalizing today to the bond markets that millions of Americans will rely upon for the secure retirements they deserve.

[3] I’m using the word “sexy” loosely, but in financial regulation it’s important to remember that all things are relative. Compare Right Said Fred, I’m Too Sexy (Charisma Records, 1991) with John Stuart Mill, On Social Freedom: Or the Necessary Limits of Individual Freedom Arising Out of the Conditions of our Social Life, Oxford and Cambridge Rev. 57-83 (1907) (noting, in connection with the notion that measures of utility are appropriately characterized as marginal, that “[m]en do not desire to be rich, but richer than other men.”) and George Sylvester Viereck, What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview, The Saturday Evening Post (Oct. 26, 1929), at 17 (“Relativity . . . merely denotes that certain physical and mechanical facts, which have been regarded as positive and permanent, are relative with regard to certain other facts.”).