[ubercrap]

A second thought on the topic - got a trader friend, a couple, actually, who try to do stuff like scalping the markets with their desktop or laptop machines. I'd suppose they are both too slow by roughly two orders of magnitude.

0.03 second? Hard to beat when your round-trip ping response time tends to be higher than that. From what I gather, the Big Boys' machines were/are sitting right next to the actual trading machines in the same server room. For all we know ping latencies might actually register as 0ms (too fast to measure).

How do we know that the actual trading machines don't have software installed by the "Big Boys" helping them covertly?

Read the article! They don't need to- they pay to get the information before anyone else! This was allowed by law apparently. Dammit, does anyone else read this the same way I am? To me, it means the game is obviously rigged. Every time I think I am getting cynical, something makes me realize I am a clueless Polyanna.

[RdSnt]

This was what market delays were for. In the old days of horseracing, just as telegraphs and then phones were starting to show up, bett'ers discovered that from a distance they could find out the results of a race before anyone else, and took advantage of it obviously. The rules were changed, by putting in delays, so the playing field become level again.

What is occurring on Wallthief now is the same thing. A few people are getting information before anyone else. It's a pretty straightforward case of cheating. What's missing is prosecution.

[Starvid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwWy4E6I04&eurl=

Oh yes they are!

[americandream]

We elevate greed to a virtue and then bemoan its quite natural consequences! Curios.

[Concerned]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwWy4E6I04&eurl=

Oh yes they are!

7:58 how convenient indeed

[nobodypanic]

'the tragedy of 911 is that more of these goldman sachs bankers didn't go down!'

-max

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQrYa_NKQQ&NR=1 @ about 3:40-3:45

[Ludi]

He's not rich, he's "blessed."

[lonewolf]

god is greed, in any -ism
(evil is militant ignorance)

[neocone]

Seeing is believing... a "cash machine" that produces nothing of value and is just a vampire sucking the productivity and honest work of the world for its profits.

We need a watt-based currency instead of the fiat money like... yesterday.

[kevincarter]

And who's doing Satan's?

[ian807]

And who's doing Satan's?

Satan's work has been outsourced to a group of private companies in the former soviet republic of Lower Slobbovia whose demonic inhabitants work in a Hellish environment (Actual Hell was deemed too expensive to maintain) for 75 cents a day plus a healthy vegetarian lunch. Workers are forced to listen to American daytime television and C-Span. The only books to read on the 20 minute lunch breaks are those written by American CEOs and self-help gurus about how you too can be rich.

[mcgowanjm]

The Republican right wing is, if anything, even more childishly delusional. For Glen Beck and Sarah Palin it comes down to "drill, baby, drill." They know nothing about the geology of oil - they don't even believe that the earth is more than six-thousand years old, meaning they don't believe in geology, period - but they are inflamed with the faith of eight-year-old children that we must have a lot more oil in the ground because this is America and God loves us more than people in other parts of the planet so it must be there. As their disappointment mounts, their childish ideas will turn cruel and sadistic.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/dreams ... .html#more

Goldman needs a new PR Department. you know this "inequality
get used to it", "profit isn't satanic", "god/jesus wants us jews/catholics/wasps to do
it" is being scripted somewhere.

[Maddog78]

Ha, reminds me of a well we drilled offshore Phillipines in the early 90's.
It was an exploration well off of Palawan, a new area.
It was a big deal so they brought out the Bishop in a chopper to bless the rig and sprinkle holy water all around.
His prayer went along the lines of "if there is not oil there now, we must all pray very hard and God will put oil there before the drill bit reaches it, all we have to do is pray"

Evidently we didn't pray the right way because it was a dry hole.

[ian807]

Ha, reminds me of a well we drilled offshore Phillipines in the early 90's.
It was an exploration well off of Palawan, a new area.
It was a big deal so they brought out the Bishop in a chopper to bless the rig and sprinkle holy water all around.
His prayer went along the lines of "if there is not oil there now, we must all pray very hard and God will put oil there before the drill bit reaches it, all we have to do is pray"

Evidently we didn't pray the right way because it was a dry hole.

This would be funny if it wasn't quite so pathetic.

[Maddog78]

I thought I misunderstood him at first, due to his strong accent when speaking English but I asked some of the other guys later on and they confirmed, that is what he said.
I've also been on jobs where goats were slaughtered on the rig floor.
That had mixed results, some dusters and some hits.

[Arthur75]

"Most of the money is being made in trading in bonds, currencies and commodities. "

And that's what investment banking is supposed to be ?
Bonds ok "à la rigueur" (companies bonds ?), but I fail to understand how making huge money in "commodities" trading could be linked to any social value.

And by the way this word "commodities" is really a good reflection of the root of the issue ...
(maybe because I'm not a native speaker, but I hear it like "trivial stuff which unlimited flow can be hedged one way or the other")

[Voice_du_More]

I do not know this man personally so forgive the generalizations but most likely the 'God' he is speaking of is the God of Freemasonry or something close to that in practice, not God as most non-elite Christians would understand the term.

[Ludi]

I do not know this man personally so forgive the generalizations but most likely the 'God' he is speaking of is the God of Freemasonry or something close to that in practice, not God as most non-elite Christians would understand the term.

Isn't that convenient.