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Better article about the book:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/04/michael-lewis-repeat-omission-crimes-committed.html
tl;dr The book is a bit bollocks, not very accurate, and wheels out tropes that the author is well known for
"But their are even more serious lapses.". Proofreading being one of them I suppose.
It's a fairly typical 'long' American magazine article - primarily aimed, it would seem, at the heads of major film studios looking for a new Matt Damon project. Brainiac outsiders in the role of David, Wall street the perfect Goliath. A few bits of dialogue that are too well remembered to be true. And most of all, as that review points out, 'It is part of the Lewis shtick not to challenge the social order', so the big corporations that own Hollywood can have their cake and eat it too.
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^^^ What fascinates me is that if we are moving to shave thousands of seconds from the exchange, and move closer and closer (physically) to the output from the Exchange, when there is going to be an almighty fight to be back on the floor. Surely the easiest way to level the field would be to have an open outcry server room with the most expensive server space right next to the CME hub.
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The server next to the hub would need to cost the same as the entire value of the arbitrage market for that to work.
The next server could be free, for all that it is worth - Arbitrage opportunities can be exploited in their entirety by the first player.
This wouldn't address the problem of front-running across exchanges either.
A possible panacea would be a transaction tax, whether that is measured in dollars or in time.
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^^ but by that same token nothing has any 'real' value.
That's not even vaguely true.
Anyway more to the point when was the last time the currency of a large wealthy developed state became worth nothing over night?
No real-world examples to cite (yet), but use your imagination; In any sort of post-apocalyptic scenario, money ceases to mean anything. If full-on worldwide warfare ever happened (on yours and every street, not watching drone footage on CNN from your comfy heated home), somebody could hand you a bag with five million quid cash in it, and it would only be of use as campfire fuel. If they handed you a PRACTICAL OBJECT such as a shovel / knife / rifle or taught you a SKILL, those things are (at that point) worth infinitely more than money.
Money is a construct. The property market is a construct. People make massive profits on houses because some greasy spiv middlemen cunts keep pushing the asking prices up to line their own pockets. Then, every other seller looks sideways at what somebody has managed to get for their house, and overcharges accordingly. This carries on, and on, and on.
At no point does anyone express a desire to treat others fairly - to sell their house for a reasonable price, to allow somebody 'beneath' them in the housing food chain to buy a good place for good money. Everybody always insists (and is pushed by society and the stinking property industry) to get the absolute maximum return on their 'investment'.
It's bullshit.As for
Property is generally a good investment so long as -
You don't buy in an area which declinesIt's short-sighted self-serving NIMBY crap like this that's rendering London and Manhattan as cripplingly expensive, rather boring carbon-copies of each other. Read the papers. An area is only ever as good as the people who choose to live there. People are already starting to realise this about Detroit, and are getting genuinely excited about its rebirth.
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If you are saying that you think people should do strangers a favour at their own massive expense then you're bonkers.
I'm saying 'treat others as you would be treated'. The middle classes harp on about the ridiculous inflation of house prices, whilst simultaneously demanding ridiculously inflated prices for the houses they want to sell.
"Their own massive expense" goes down and down and down once people collectively realise that they don't have to participate in a race to see who can borrow the most money.
It's like Spike Lee whinging about nouveau Brooklynites having fancy dogs, whilst simultaneously demanding a $15,400,000 profit on the sale of his Manhattan townhouse. He's the exact 'problem' he's whinging about, only on a far larger monetary scale.
There's a middle ground, a point at which people can be reasonable. A point at which the relative monetary value of things makes sense. We need to get back to it, before the next generation of non-aristocrats are priced out of almost everything from education to home ownership (if indeed they actually want to own homes). -
A not-so-small percentage of 'normal' buyers who have worked hard, saved, put a big deposit together and mortgaged themselves to their back teeth OR somehow obtained massive sums from family (dead or alive).
Ftfy.
You need to read this, if you haven't already. And even if you have, read it again.The answer is control, more control, legalised theft, legalised racism, patronising twaddle from MPs for the next five years, etc etc. The answer is not cutting the social lepers we call Estate Agents completely out of the housing food chain.
Ftfy also. I'm glad I don't live where you live. This park's ace.
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I have held the view that our country is a bit doomed for a long while now. With the world getting smaller as air travel and internet get easier to access for more and more, it makes the gap between rich and poor smaller which is good. The downside to that is that our current "affluent" lifestyles and "well payed" jobs will be taken down a notch(or a few hundered notches) so they are on a level field with the rest of the now much wider market. Not sure revolting will do much unless it's by shareholders, it won't be trying to convince the government but the
corporate investment. -
it makes the gap between rich and poor smaller
Pretty sure the gap between rich and poor is getting wider. Definitely in developed countries, but probably worldwide as well. The top 1% own 35% of the wealth, and this is only increasing.
If your lifestyle is being taken down a few notches, the problem isn't that the dirt poor people are earning a few more dollars each day, it's that most of the extra wealth that's being created is going to the people who already own everything.
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I have held the view that our country is a bit doomed for a long while now. With the world getting smaller as air travel and internet get easier to access for more and more, it makes the gap between rich and poor smaller which is good. The downside to that is that our current "affluent" lifestyles and "well payed" jobs will be taken down a notch(or a few hundered notches) so they are on a level field with the rest of the now much wider market. Not sure revolting will do much unless it's by shareholders, it won't be trying to convince the government but the
corporate investment.Pretty sure the gap between rich and poor is getting wider. Definitely in developed countries, but probably worldwide as well. The top 1% own 35% of the wealth, and this is only increasing.
If your lifestyle is being taken down a few notches, the problem isn't that the dirt poor people are earning a few more dollars each day, it's that most of the extra wealth that's being created is going to the people who already own everything.
Air travel (and, indeed, any form of fast travel) is a tool mainly useful to those who wish to increase the size of markets and achieve monopolistic or oligopolistic dominance. Never mind all those overworked people flying away on holiday to far-flung places, its real role in the modern world is to enable those who are bent on it to dominate space.
The Internet's main function is, likewise, to help increase the size of markets by harvesting market information. Knowledge of (the) market(s) is a vital requirement for any business, which is why companies like Farcebonk are so grotesquely overvalued. I think the main upshot, if it doesn't get stopped somehow, will be the drive towards larger, more unified markets dominated by relatively few, as is already happening.
I don't see either 'tool' as conducive to greater justice in any way at all.
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this threads become boring
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this threads become boring
some excitement for you (via Google: exciting economy banks)!
Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future
{link}
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[QUOTE=hugo7;4165807]^^ but by that same token nothing has any 'real' value.
That's not even vaguely true.
No real-world examples to cite (yet), but use your imagination; In any sort of post-apocalyptic scenario, money ceases to mean anything...
....somebody could hand you a bag with five million quid cash in it, and it would only be of use as campfire fuel. If they handed you a PRACTICAL OBJECT such as a shovel / knife / rifle or taught you a SKILL, those things are (at that point) worth infinitely more than money.[/QUOTE]
Just to come back to this...
My point was that 'value' can only be defined in relation to something else. Therefore nothing can have any 'real' or inherent value. Of course you're right that in a post-apocalyptic world cash is less useful than someone teaching you how to sharpen a knife without a whetstone when yours is blunt.
But today, right now, there is essentially zero attributable value to someone teaching you how to sharpen a knife without a whetstone when you can; youtube it for free, walk to a shop and buy a whetstone with money, take your knife to a shop and pay someone to do it, etc. etc. etc.
Planning for some sort of end of the world scenario doesn't strike me as the practical or sensible route. Also to date it rarely happens just like that (happy to be proved wrong). Much more relevant and realistic scenarios are war or *serious *economic collapse.
For that there *are *equivalent situations in history. Which German Jews did 'best' (for want of a better phrase) in the late 1930-40s? Those that knew how to defend themselves? Survive in forests? etc. or those with lots of money and/or influence who left early? I don't know enough to comment on Argentina, but I would guess that applied their.
If you're worried about the UK economy suddenly coming to an end you're best bet is just to try and accumulate all the assets you can, diversify and jump ship at the right time.
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/penny-wise/
When are they getting rid of the stupid 1s and 2s here?
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speaking of graphs
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/535ea84a69beddf2719c9154-800-/biggestkillers_final_v8_no-logo.jpgwhats that got to do with things?!?
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^^ but by that same token nothing has any 'real' value.
Also other than drug dealers I doubt many people have a large amount of savings in cash. Your average middle class saver will have a mix of pension, ISA, and the equity in their house. Those with higher incomes will probably have a similar set up but with a portfolio and some sexy/fun higher risk investments.
Anyway more to the point when was the last time the currency of a large wealthy developed state became worth nothing over night?