[ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading

[Jones Murphy]

I agree, Olga. I have yet to see any evidence of superior
enlightenment here, and I am unsubscribing from this group because I'm
having to autoblock so many participants for nonsense and bigotry,
much like I would in any average forum. So far I've just seen a lot of
hierarchism, absurd claims of meritocracy in societies which
horrifically and rigidly stratified, crude and aggressive tribalism
and racism etc.

The idea that the budget deficit is some great and insoluble problem
is nonsense. Raising taxes on the wealthiest back to what they were
during the peak of America's economic growth and upward mobility would
easily cure the deficit by itself. More modest tax increases coupled
with slashing the insane military budget to some small sane multiple
of the next biggest(currently China's) would also take care of the
budget deficit and pay down the national debt very quickly. The
illusion of a budget deficit and national debt is created sustained by
the lowest federal taxes in 80 years, since the low  low taxes leading
into the Great Crash.

The idea that CEO's today are working so much harder(at 400plus times
average worker pay) than CEO's when Reagan took power(40 times average
worker pay) is false. CEO's are not working ten times harder now than
30 years ago. This is rank hierarchism again, and a false claim of
meritocracy where it does not exist. I know. I'm a CEO of a small
hedge fund, and in my own career have worked with and done business
with a lot of CEO's of very big financial companies whose names you'd
instantly recognize. Many are very talented, and many are not talented
in any business sense but are great "survivor" contestants good at
scheming and backstabbing their way to the top. Virtually none of them
are worth 400 times what average workers are making. I wouldn't pay
it, as a shareholder or director. It's just too easy to find talented
people to replace them at a much lower price than these absurd
multiples. And in fact that's what is happening in most of the world.
The US is a striking exception, and this cannot last without severe
negative consequences.

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Olga Bourlin <olga.bourlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:58 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>> Aside: even in this far-more-than-average enlightened group ...
>
> and
>
>> I do urge us all to refrain from insulting each other's favorite political
>> systems, or making sweeping generalizations regarding libertarians,
>> conservatives, liberals, or anything else.  We can do better than that here.
>
> Spike, since you made the sweeping generalization ;)) about this
> "far-more-than-average" enlightened group, I would love to know what
> it is that makes you (or anyone else) here think this.
>
> To begin with, what do you mean by "enlightened?"
>
> I've mainly been lurking in this group (for over 10 years), but I have
> to tell you the thing that's puzzled me the most about this group has
> been its lack of diversity - political, gender, and "racial."  This
> may be another subject altogether, but it seems to me worth discussing
> (and perhaps how this lack of diversity fits into being - or not being
> so - "enlightened").
>
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