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Originally Posted by bhutocracy
Don't try and change the subject. No where did I mention day trading. And in no way is blackjack even close to analagous to investing. And don't be infantile, HFT is incredibly different to bank bailouts. It's not even close.. You're basically conflating every component and actor in the market as one big whackamole to tear down.
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The article I posted about is NOT about bank bailouts. The TARP program of bank bailouts was highly publicized and the facts about it were available to everyone. What actually happened was additional virtually unlimited amounts of money (that eventually numbered in the trillions) were also lent to banks off the books and that the government had no intention of ever making that information public - it took a Supreme Court decision won by Bloomberg to force them to come clean about it. People lost millions making moves in the market based on all of the information available and lost because information was deliberately kept secret by our government and the banks who went on to earn hundreds of billions of dollars in additional profit by monetizing their dark money interest free loans from taxpayers. That is not the same thing as the TARP program and bank bailouts most people are aware about.
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There are things you can complain about, like corrupt politicians giving bailouts to their campaign benefactors.. HSBC executives not going to jail for financing terror etc. Calling the market a random casino isn't one of them. Maybe learn a bit more about it first. Matt Taibbi might be one of the few great journalists left out there, but just because storms and tsunami's make great reading, don't think there aren't a lot of nice sunny days out there.
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The hyperbole is in your head. I didn't say the markets are random casinos... I said they are casinos. Casinos are very much NOT random. In fact they make money by not being random and by collecting a very well defined rake from players. Neither Taibbi nor I think there are no sunny days... of course there are sunny days. The information uncovered by Bloomberg clearly is not one of them.
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You think any of this affects some small stock with good growth and earning potential you're looking to purchase? As though anything shifty is going to happen in it and as though HFT traders are even aware of it because of something that happened in an unrelated sector during a crisis period? Hell I can guarantee you right now some representative of the people is giving a contract to a defense contractor.. to a solar energy company, to a computer repair company in their building on opaque and bribed terms... It sure as hell doesn't affect any of the companies I invest in.
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It greatly affects the overall financial health of our nation, particularly because trillions of dollars of retirement money is riding the ebb and flow of the market which is being whipsawed by asshats after hours, via HFT, with access to trillions in dark money and virtually zero regulation. As you pointed out and I posted about weeks ago, the government is doing virtually nothing to HSBC for laundering money on behalf of Iran and drug cartels on the theory that HSBC is too big to prosecute. Do you really think large investment institutions are being properly regulated by the SEC or that they aren't manipulating the markets at an unprecedented level in light of the fact that they "can't" be prosecuted? They can't even by trusted to properly manage their LIBOR responsibilities. In a casino you know the odds of every game before you play. Some of the odds are very unfavorable but people play anyway. That's not the same as stating one set of odds and actually offering another.
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I'll accept that the market is like a game of poker as there is risk involved, you play against other players, there are winners and losers and you can generally chose whether or not to play a hand. But don't for a second think that if you always bet on bullets that you won't at the end of the day come away with an average profit even though it's assumed you can still lose a lot of hands playing it. All investments carry risk. Even 0.25% in the bank.
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That's all fine and good. What isn't fine is when you play poker against someone else and they tell you their deuces are wild but yours are not. The market no longer is used to provide capital to companies seeking investment as its primary purpose. It isn't used primarily by long term investors. It isn't being traded based on company valuations or with all participants playing by the same rules. Your point seems to be that you can still make money in a badly broken market... I don't disagree. People can make money playing in a casino as well. That doesn't mean the markets are being regulated properly, that the way things are necessarily is the way they ought to be or that the game is any less rigged.