I understand your surprise here, but just to note: lay people intuitively think that "stock manipulation" is a crime. This is because their retirement savings r

I understand your surprise here, but just to note: lay people intuitively think that "stock manipulation" is a crime. This is because their retirement savings relies on stock prices being fairly stable due to attachment to actual business value. Intuitively, people that put that system at risk are doing something wrong, and things that are wrong should potentially be illegal. Essentially: most people intuitively think the stock market should be more heavily regulated than it actually is.