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Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
Jeff is copy/pasting from Rand. He doesn't believe in this, or understand it, any more than he believes or understands what Adam Smith wrote.— August 25, 2012 1:16 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
Twister, you know I agree. In a fantasy world where my opinion amounted to more than a weak fart, I'd eliminate the following: * High Frequency Trading * MBA degrees * Commodities Trading (except for actual participants in the market) * Mortgage Tax Deductions * Any inheritance greater than 1000% of the average mean national income * Legacy scholarships and Semi-Pro Sports at Universities (how about education instead?) ...oh this list could go on and on...militarized police who think they are at "war" with the citizens...religious fanatics...professional politicians and their enablers... ...but my comment is mere wind, blowing ever so gently, stirring not even a butterfly's wings. I do not now, nor ever will have the power or position to enact any of these changes, and I don't expect to see them in my life time. I do, however, expect to see America continue to decline the longer these institutions and circumstances endure. It's a pity...used to be a nice country.— August 25, 2012 1:14 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
Citing a Forbes opinion piece as a neutral rebuttal on tax policy discussion is laughable. Please, try to do some research BEFORE coming to your conclusion, not the other way around, Jeff.— August 25, 2012 1:06 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
No, Don. The casino, run at our expense, must be shut down. Otherwise, no matter how much revenue we get we're always at risk for losing everything when the game is rigged against us.— August 25, 2012 1:04 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
So, you say that this is good because there are opportunities in the casino for you to take money from suckers... Then you climb on Ayn Rand's high horse and claim that you practice a superior morality? I've also written at length in this forum on this issue, calling out your glaring illogic or immorality as needed. Then you were claiming Adam Smith as your justification...when I pointed out that Smith said the opposite you called names. Now you've bowed to Ayn Rand as your iconoclast. And it's just as clear you haven't read her books either...she'd never defend what you do as honest or moral. So what we're left with is traders like yourself trying, pathetically, to explain their immoral theft from the rest of us normal people...who you regard only as suckers and victims. (Those are your own words, Jeff.) We don't buy what you're selling, buddy. You're smart, well read, but superficial and lacking in basic humanity...otherwise you'd change your profession and contribute to the world instead of just plundering as much as you can before the collapse you foresee. best, Fred— August 25, 2012 1:01 a.m.
The Principles Of Success.
I find this particularly offensive: "Our willpower is the reason everything happens to us, everything from the good, and the bad, we are ultimately responsible for our actions." In other words, if you're poor, it's all your own fault. You deserve to suffer. In other words, if you're injured, or born with a medical problem, it's all your own fault. You deserve to suffer. In other words, if you're born wealthy, good looking, and gifted, it's all your own achievement. You deserve to have pleasure and satisfaction for the triumph of your willpower." Seriously...this whole train of thought upon which your article is based, is so deeply inhuman and contemptuous of reality that I'm taking the time to show how evil it truly is in its implications. To offer this tripe as advice is as morally reprehensible as it is common.— August 25, 2012 12:49 a.m.
The Principles Of Success.
Baloney. Here are the REAL keys to success: 1. Be born wealthy. 2. Be born with no major health issues, and at least average intelligence. 3. Be born in a country with stability, rule of law, and no wars, famines, or droughts. 4. Avoid charlatans and liars who tell you that hard work and honesty will make you rich. (They're just exploiting your gullibility to get you to work for free.) 5. Get lucky. Expecting the world to open up to you just because you visualize things and want them really really badly is childish and delusional. Expecting those who already have wealth to give any of it voluntarily to you by paying you a fair wage for your labor is foolish...you'll die broken and poor having slaved your life away for others. Expecting the government to treat your effort the same as others is also naive. If you have a successful business, the government will try to confiscate as much as possible while simultaneously helping your entrenched competitor to expand. This is the reality we face in America today. I've had enough of these sappy article extolling hard work and goal setting and plans...there's no evidence this works, and we'll all be a lot better off when we finally admit it. The game is rigged. Playing by these rules only makes you a loser.— August 25, 2012 12:43 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
Markets are supposed to be price-finding mechanisms, and when they're used as casinos instead the mobsters move in. Unfortunately, they're gambling with public pensions, private savings, government financed loans...OUR money. Who gets the profits? Not the pensioners, savers, or municipalities that saved or extended credit...only the traders and middlemen who insert themselves between the parties to act as parasites. These are the people who need to be named and shamed, in public, loudly, with their names, addresses, photos...wanted posters to alert the public to their crimes and to be on the lookout. The government, instead of coddling these criminals, should put up rewards for their capture or death. We need to bring back capital punishment for financial crimes. If the government won't do it, the public will...— August 25, 2012 12:33 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
A transaction tax would go a long way toward addressing the corruption enabled by the advent of high frequency trading. No legitimate trader would suffer, liquidity would be exactly the same as today, and the penny-gamblers would be shut out. Markets are supposed to be about honest and transparent price discovery. They've been turned into casinos where the rubes are ripped off by professionals in expensive suits. The thieves and their paid political prostitutes can do this voluntarily, but they won't. Look at reaction from deluded "traders" like Jeff...they really think they're doing "god's work". So eventually this will be done with force. Either officially, or unofficially.— August 25, 2012 12:22 a.m.
Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling
Jeff, you clearly haven't read Ayn Rand either. The key to her philosophy was integrity. Telling the truth. Not deceiving others (since that is only sacrificing your independence to what they think) or living from the work of others. But that's what you do for a living. You play tricks, game the system, and since you trade commodities without performing any work related to them whatsoever, you are living from the work and efforts of others. So knock off the Ayn Rand quotes...you don't have any standing to use them. You are the biggest parasite commenting here, and from your own admission you've never produced anything yourself. Please, since you consider yourself to be Atlas, shrug away Jeff. No one will notice the removal of yourself and your friends to Galt Gulch....a few years later we might see the article about how you all descended into cannibalism and survival of the richest, but it won't distract we the living from our continuing pursuit of happiness free of the arrogant and immature followers of a half-baked philosophy that Ayn Rand herself followed least of all.— August 25, 2012 12:16 a.m.