The Power of the Uptick Rule

The stock advance picked up speed after Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. and the head of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, said that the Securities and Exchange Commission would restore the "uptick rule." The SEC later confirmed to CNN that it could reinstate the rule as early as next month.

As I noted here, back on October 10 of last year, the elimination of the uptick rule was one of the big problems that helped the market spiral down. 

Rather than worrying about health care, education, the environment and everything else all at one time, shouldn't Barack Obama be making sure that the SEC is going to get going on measures like reinstating the uptick rule -- and, while he's at it, urging Congress to move quickly on suspending mark to market accounting?