If you don't think the SEC are keeping busy you probably haven't been looking very hard. Ignoring enforcement which someone else mentioned, they are the only th

If you don't think the SEC are keeping busy you probably haven't been looking very hard. Ignoring enforcement which someone else mentioned, they are the only thing stopping exchanges charging every human on the planet $1000 each time they blink. It's a full time job in itself, and the SEC can be quite heavy-handed in increasing competitiveness despite a continuous onslaught of lawsuits from incumbents every time they sneeze. Recent examples include approving an IEX order type that fundamentally undermines a traditional business model for the exchanges (but is beneficial to just about everybody else), and the new market data initiative approved last year which should greatly reduce extortionate rentseeking on the part of the exchanges, while forcing them to share data with the public (depth of book) that previously cost 6 figures per exchange per user annually. Both of these generated immediate lawsuits from NYSE