Remember May 6, 2010? I do. I'm doing my taxes, and reporting how my nice little stocks in Water Resources and Green things were all, all sold off that day when the stock market plunged 1,000 points in 10 minutes, driving the price of my stocks far below the triggers set for selling. I had set points for selling to lock in any small profits I might ever have gotten, and did not have to worry. If stocks went south for a while, a sale would kick in. Well, it kicked in. Everything went down, everything sold off, and then ended the day right back where they had started.
If you remember...
That's how it will start. It may be a bit of unrepaired infrastructure that causes it; the electric grid may fail, a trading android may run amok - no one can shut it down - and things just get out of hand. I know it's hard to believe. We really are right on top of the important stuff, like burning nuclear rods, like Bear Stearns, like asset bubbles.
We have the proverbial handle on it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12827752 22 March 2011 Last updated at 23:20 ET
Stock trades to exploit speed of light, says researcher
Financial institutions may soon change what they trade or where they do their trading because of the speed of light."High-frequency trading" carried out by computers often depends on differing prices of a financial instrument in two geographically-separated markets.
Exactly how far the signals have to go can make a difference in such trades.
Alexander Wissner-Gross told the American Physical Society meeting that financial institutions are looking at ways to exploit the light-speed trick.
Dr Wissner-Gross, of Harvard University, said that the latencies - essentially, the time delay for a signal to wing its way from one global financial centre to another - advantaged some locations for some trades and different locations for others...
Once again, our dreams are beyond human scale, beyond the good of mankind or of the Earth: an overweening arrogance that cares little or nothing for human values. Or even economic values: we seek ways to increase wealth with no increase in actually goods provided for the world.
Once again, we shall lose control and our electronic world of dreams will collapse... ultimately. There is a Fibonacci sequence in reverse counting down from one financial crisis to another. 2008 + 5 = 2013, but I think the economic politics of election year 2012 will push it back a year or two. The reason that there is a reverse Fibonacci is due to the intervals getting closer, and they are getting closer due to the types of nonsense outlined in the BBC article above: Madness at the Speed of Light!
If you think this is crazy, I wish you could prove it crazy. As it is, we will either be grubbing for roots and berries somewhere, reciting books we have memorized, waiting for the future, or we will be continuing our present lives of the Rich and Famous. Either outcome is fine by me, because I do not really have any say in the matter.
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2 comments:
The world's liable to go belly up because of the debt crisis in Europe. Ireland, Spain, Greece, Portugal. These economies are being propped up with loans from countries that are themselves in debt. Does this make sense in any universe you can imagine?
Nope. That's why I keep thinking I'm going to wake up.
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