Please stop peddling this science denialism. There is great consensus outside the intellectually-bankrupt fields of sociology and gender studies.
250 karma · joined September 21, 2015
[1] https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/debate05/debate05_index.htm...
There is zero difference. "Hate speech" is a phrase invented by modern progressives to describe disagreeable views. It has zero meaning outside of pop liberal circles.
In order for a university to saddle students with crushing debt, it must almost certainly be both a.) expensive b.) unhelpful for career prospects. This points to private liberal-arts colleges and for-profit diploma mills (though the latter are a lesser part of the problem; they are cheaper and enroll nearly 40% fewer students [1]).
> More to the point: "the law" clearly says that you don't have to pay your loans if you're disabled.
I'm not suggesting the law is being violated. What's offensive is that borrowers are being encouraged to default, _regardless of delinquency status_; the majority are current on their loans! The administration is actively seeking to maximize loss to the taxpayer.
Silly hyperbole. They're simply being asked to pay for a product they consumed.
> the use of private companies charging usurious rates is simply wrong.
Sounds like your complaint is less with "usury" than with private enterprise.
> Trump is the inevitable outcome of 50 years of racist, belligerent fear mongering
Trump is the inevitable outcome of eight years of liberal grievance peddling. His supporters are just trying to claim their share of the spoils of victimhood.
Even the most pessimistic view suggests that real wages grew, especially after the conclusion of the Napoleanic Wars. [1]
> The real benefits from industrialization were realized after hard political changes.
The real benefits of industrialization were immediately realized via mass production of widely desired and previously unobtainable goods. This should be clear from migratory patterns: workers abandoned the countryside en masse (in spite of city living/working conditions) for a reason. Enclosure laws were not a major factor until 1845.
> You don't create middle class from mid 18th century society.
Of course you do. The rise of the managerial and professional classes is a direct consequence of the Industrial Revolution.
[1] http://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/users/Allen/unpublished/pessimi...
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/S-F-spendi...
[2] https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San...
They're clearly not implementing a minimum-error rate classifier. Which isn't to defend their choice of loss function (it's not 0-1, but beyond that I have no idea); just to point out the inanity of some of the comments claiming the NSA isn't aware of base rates.
A simple example: suppose AAPL is currently quoted $95.00 x $96.00. A reasonable estimate for the "fair value" is the midpoint, $95.50. Now, a new sell order for $95.01 arrives at the market. AAPL is now quoted at $95.00 x $95.01. In the absence of other signals, a trader might reason that there's something wrong with the guy selling at $95.01 when everyone else thinks fair value is ~$95.50. If so, he'll rush to trade against the new order. First one to get there gets shares cheap; everyone else gets nothing. Hold the position for as long as you like.
There are a lot of details to get right, but this is an actual HFT strategy, not a toy example. Note that your speed matters only insofar as it lets you trade ahead of everyone else. All the infrastructure investment is required to stay ahead of other participants, but it does not confer a durable advantage: the arms race will quickly erode the edge. The investment is best-viewed as a tax imposed by other HFT firms, paid to technology vendors and exchanges. The big winners are those who sell the equipment and fast lines that certain HFTs desperately need.
> What if the regulators decided to ban all HFTs. The market would look pretty similar to how it does today. The big change would be somewhat wider spreads: market makers need to compensate for the additional risk they take on by leaving their orders out. Any other traders here have an opinion?
The "Flash Boys" case is a funny one. The HFTs did see the orders--but so did EVERYONE else, and in basically the same instant, because all transactions are publicly disseminated. Your point is right in a very narrow sense and very wrong on every axis that actually matters.
I'm mystified as to why Flash Boys didn't valorize high-frequency trading. It's a Moneyball story where the scrappy nerds use computers and math to out-compete the dinosaurs. Oh well.
Takers exploit the option value of resting orders by trading when "fair value" moves but those orders don't. "Real" investors are better off because they cheaply acquired a security they may hold for years (the fact that the price will shortly move against them by a penny or two is irrelevant). Market makers are worse off--but they're HFT guys, and it's not really your problem.
The value of further decimalization seems questionable. It would in all cases reduce displayed size. Would transaction costs still decline due to tighter spreads? For the liquid lower-priced stocks, probably. For stocks whose natural spread is > 1 cent (most of the expensive stuff), certainly not. For everything else, hard to say.
Maybe a Japan/Europe-style tick increment schedule is a good compromise.
There are network effects in trading: people go to transact where everyone else is transacting. Because HFT is allowed on the most popular venues, the economic thing to do is hold your nose and trade there too. This is true even if HFT somehow makes the venues "worse" (which it doesn't).