Wall Street is no longer what it once was and professes to be: A place that helps aggregate capital so that business can begin and expand - a service of great benefit to society. No, with 70% of the trading done by computer/algorithm there is no longer any "service" - just an ongoing Tony Soprano style extortion. These systems are not making the markets more efficient, not even a little bit. They are nothing but a "Tribute" collection point. Every $ these guys make in this fashion come DIRECTLY out the pocket of the Investing Public. This required no great expertise, technological breakthrough, no wonder drug... just a "Work Permit" from one of the "Right" universities and the POLITICAL LICENSE that comes with being a member of the elite - and POOF! The money comes rolling in, one "tic" at a time, BILLIONS and BILLIONS of times.
Admittedly, I run a fund and speculate in the markets. That's right - SPECULATE. I win some, and I lose some, and in doing so folks like me provide a price mechanism and liquidity - particularly in the commodity markets - that allow producers to sell the product forward, giving them the incentive to produce NOW. Goldman et al do NOT win some and lose some. They ONLY WIN, because they are the HOUSE, and they and their ilk (Goldman, Harvard & Co., JP Morgan, the U.S. Treasury (but I repeat myself, I already said Goldman) are so convinced of their superiority and so arrogant as to regard themselves doing "God's Work".
As Mark Rubio, Republican candidate for Florida's Governor said so succinctly:
Those people that went to the right schools believe we need a guardian class to tell us what to do.Amen.
Now they tell us they are doing us a favor by skimming a piece off of 70% of the trades occurring in the market place. Well-Gee-F*&^ing-Thanks.
BTW, Mr. Rubio, you are from Florida. According to the President (look at his appointment for the Supreme Court), Goldman (look where they recruit), and the rest of the Northeastern political establishment there are NO SMART PEOPLE in Florida, the South, the Midwest, or the West. None, Zero, Zip, Nada, Ugatz, Bupkiss. 303 MILION Americans, but the only people smart enough to serve on the High Court or work at Goldman Sachs comprise a yearly graduate pool of perhaps 7,000 people. Guess how many 150 + IQ people there are in a population of 300,000,000? MILLIONS. Are all 7,000 members of the aforementioned pool ALL 150+ in the IQ department? Doubtful.
Thanks G-d for the Bolgsphere. History, and political reporting, is written by the folks with the pens... and in our case that WAS the liberal Main-Stream-Media. It was the Blogsphere that collapsed their strangle hold, but not without a fight - witness a N.J. Court's ruling that Bloggers are NOT journalists. Really? WTF??!!
The Elite ruling establishment isn't going without a fight, but in the end there just isn't that much they can do about it. The internet let the shaving cream out of the can - even these Drek cannot stuff it back in.
14 comments:
Net neutrality is not a given. And that is a huge factor in the success of the blogosphere.
ATT, Verizon, Comcast et al would like to see it go and meter the web for big bucks. To those who pay the most goes the bandwidth and the speed. We have fallen to 20th in the world for internet connectivity. The telecoms would love to do to the net what the banksters have done to the financial and political world. With the full support of Rupert Murdoch. He don't want no stinkin net neutrality. The Borg rules, bitchez. Submit!
Dialup Prisoner.
Not everyone who graduates from college is an idiot. If that were true, the old Wall Street of past decades, which believed in business, business, business, wouldn't have hired ANYONE from a college unless they had the potential to be an economic performer in the first place. They hired people -- college people -- they thought knew how to make or shelter money -- at least they used to. College is more than just concentrating on a major.
Also, from 1989-2007, I was 100% in the S&P 500. Investing (and winning) was easy. It is apparent it will take a LOT more work to be a successful investor in the future, in alternatives like metals, commodities, currencies, bonds, real estate, etc. Investing has gone from becoming a nice, fun way to pile up some gains to being actual work. A lot of people don't have the time or interest to follow this stuff, and they will start to spend or save their money instead. Wall Street is putting itself out of business.
Bur:
Did you read my post?
Just wondering...
I believe I'm agreeing with the Wall Street part of it and disagreeing with the college part of it.
As a former liberal (until I became Peak Oil Aware), I just wanted to say that I absolutely agree with all your points--except the one about the media being liberal. The media is no such thing. It is a corp-gov organ spouting the propaganda of the powers that be. Writer Joe Bageant, the author of the fabulous book Deer Hunting With Jesus, calls it The American Hologram.
Keep the masses fat, dumb and entertained and you can get away with just about anything if you are the ruling class. And there is nothing "liberal" about that.
Kolchack:
From my perspective, the Liberal Elite ARE the ruling class.
Bur:
Read my post again. I truly think you are reading somebody else or you are missing something. We don't need to beat it up any more. Whatever you see, you see.
"Liberal" is just their "front". "Left", communist, socialist, with government sheparding the masses who are too dumb to know what's best for them... is who they really are - complete with a bunch of goose stepping SS types only too willing to do the bidding of a government without questioning...
There may be some cleaning house on Wall Street with a goodly number of the worst offenders going to jail. Now that GS is seeking to settle and a second firm is up on the same charges it is becoming apparent that the SEC is looking for a test case before opening the floodgates. That really is in Wall Street’s interests though I doubt TPTB will see it that way. As I have said before there will be a period of rapid elite turnover before this is all over. If it doesn’t involve 80% or so going to either jail or the poorhouse, then it will be 80% going to the morgue. Unfortunately if they manage to hold firm a bunch of people whom did nothing wrong will end up following them to the grave because an enraged mob is not selective.
But I thought the USA was a meritocracy? Wasn't that why you wanted to be a republic??
None of this would have happened if you'd stayed a colony! ;-)
Dan,
Is the SEC looking for a test case or just some media buzz that they are "doing something to the bad guys." They looked the other way for a long time. The Fed and Treasury are complicit in this. I'll be very surprised if much changes. I'd expect some new "regulation" and perhaps some to cross over from the "private sector" to "public service." But, I expect no real change in the cast of characters.
Regards,
Coal Guy
If the prosecutors have a slam dunk case (Madoff), they work pretty quickly. Since almost nothing on Wall Street is simple, it could be awhile, if ever, before anyone on Wall Street gets sent to "Club Fed." They just don't have slam dunk cases. Lawyers aren't dumb.
Greg - I guess we can agree to disagree with the definition of "liberal." I've always interperted it as meaning one believes there should be a level playing field in which each individual has equal opportunity to succeed or fail based upon their own merits.
I look at our greedy, disgusting elites, everyone from Goldman Sachs to Massey Energy to BP and I just don't see a bunch of liberals. What I see are exploitative capitalists who have completely coopted a governmental system that should have kept them in check. And when government and big business become seamless, that is the perfect picture of fascism as defined by Mussolini.
Liberal was first used in the United States for the Liberal republicans. The essentially ran against the whigish policy's that the republicans had embraced (essentially mercantilism similar to Britain, High tariffs, etc.) There was no true Democratic Party because of they lost in the civil war and the following sanctions on southern states. The Plank of the liberal republicans basically read like a modern list of basic conservative principle (free trade, redeeming greenbacks in gold, a stable currency, restoring confederate rights and civil service reform). The first republican to run and win on a classic liberal republican platform was Ronald Reagan.
The real problem is trying to attach 21st century name tags to nineteenth century politics and vice-versa.
It seems weird that people here are confusing the results of fascism (crony capitalism) and capitalism (free market). The government has created this partnership starting during Lincolns Reign, pushed by Wilson, then FDR, LBJ, and now Obama. The government is the one that creates corporate monopolies not the other way around. If bad corporate policy prevails companies fail in a free market. But in the perverse world of elastic monetary policy, bloated budgets and union patronage the government is beholden to way to many special interests groups. The fed the most prevalent problem with the insidious inflation it creates.
LIBERAL now means statist/Fabian socialist and ultimately Marxist. The conglomeration of power in the state period. Any classical definition of freedom or liberty is completely lost. Same word, but different definition.
kolchack:
Follow the MONEY. The money flows from the Corporations to the Democratic parts far better than it does to the Republicans. Get on google and start following the money... anybody with a calculator can do this, and it will be worth your time.
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