The problem with music is that prices have been artificially high for so long, and they still are expecting to be able to charge a high price. $0.99 for a song is too high. Why pay $10 for an MP3 album download when I can get a physical CD for about the same price? In my eyes, a CD has more value than just a collection of MP3 files. With digital downloads, supply is essentially infinite. This means the equilibrium price is zero. The music industry has changed, and it will be harder to make money.
Basically, these bankers are making money gaming the system. It is harmful to the economy because money is being allocated to do unproductive things. Maybe you can argue that one cannot know what is productive, and what is not, but the resources spent developing HFT systems and the huge banker bonuses could be allocated to much more productive uses.
At worst, these traders are gambling against each other.
At worst, you will see your mutual funds and ETFs perform much poorer than normal because of the HFTs. Or we see another massive flash crash, permanently throwing away people's confidence in the markets. Goldman Sachs makes billions through HFT, billions that would otherwise be in the hands of the regular people, instead of the elite.
HFT is just providing volume. They buy shares and immediately sell it. In the big picture, the liquidity remains the same. And how does HFT provide value? They just make it more expensive for both the buyer and seller. They are taking AWAY value.
And why should everyone care? Because if you invest in ETFs or mutual funds, they make big orders, and the HFTs are skimming off those orders, reducing the return on YOUR investment.
How does it provide liquidity or stabilization? It is taking money out of the system. The "normal" trades would have happened without the high-frequency traders. I have yet to hear a single argument for high-frequency trading that makes sense. It seems to me that the big banks have manufactured these arguments to convince the lawmakers to allow them to continue their skimming.
Ha, this is the most lame "watch list" ever. They should just merge the terrorist watch list with the piracy watch list with the rational: Piracy is terrorism. It terrorizes the music and movie industry. Every downloader is like a suicide bomber killing the music/movie industry profits.
Exactly, the CRIA managed to get levies put on blank CDs and DVDs precisely for this purpose. In Canada, people actually get pissed when they try to pass these dumb DCMA laws, and the politicians have a hard time pushing them through. Why risk getting their asses kicked in the polls for these dumb laws. It's democracy at work.
Exactly, they are essentially trying to sell something of unlimited supply for a very high price. And they have to compete for the limited amounts of money consumers have for entertainment. The music industry needs to figure out how to lower their costs. Maybe fire all their RIAA lawyers. In fact, I hope all successful artists go independent and take control of their profits.
That's a very interesting angle I never thought of. Radio essentially limited our music variety, so we had to buy music to get our desire for variety. It's true for me. With Internet radio, I have even stopped downloading music. I wouldn't be surprised if music piracy is going down with the rise of free Internet radio.
If you've RTFA, it was just an idea that a German scientist came up with as an application of his organic thin film transistors. First of all, it requires trace amounts of gold, and gold is damn expensive. Second of all, it is very unlikely that electronic circuits will survive in currency for any reasonable amount of time. Currency has to survive a lot of abuse. If this is implemented at all, it would only be used for anti-counterfeiting measures. If this worries you, you should be already worried that currency already has unique serial numbers. In principal, the government could force scanners to read and report the numbers at every cash register.
The best way is for the government to make energy more expensive by taxing it. According to wikipeida, Germany's electricity is 3 times more expensive than the US. If you ever go to Germany, you would see that they have already implemented electricity saving measures. Like timed switches on stairwell/hallway lights. CFLs have been widely used for many years. Incandescent bulbs are still sold, but people prefer to buy CFLs because they will save money. Plus, there's the option to use incandescent bulbs if you want to. No government regulation necessary.
It's just a matter of time, before the Chinese surpass the US in technology research. The way I see it, there is too much overhead running a company. You need spend the resources to file as many patents as possible, then you need to hire an army of lawyers to ensure fend off your competitor's patent suits. While the US companies have to invest many resources to fend off lawsuits, the Chinese will use their resources to reinvest in research. In the future, these Chinese companies may find it's not even worth it to hire an army of lawyers so they can sell their products in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
Without the sun, earth would be a ball of ice. No one is arguing that finance is unnecessary.
But you'll still be making twice as much as the average engineer. I wish I went into finance rather than engineering. I would be a lot richer.
The problem with music is that prices have been artificially high for so long, and they still are expecting to be able to charge a high price. $0.99 for a song is too high. Why pay $10 for an MP3 album download when I can get a physical CD for about the same price? In my eyes, a CD has more value than just a collection of MP3 files. With digital downloads, supply is essentially infinite. This means the equilibrium price is zero. The music industry has changed, and it will be harder to make money.
At worst, these traders are gambling against each other.
At worst, you will see your mutual funds and ETFs perform much poorer than normal because of the HFTs. Or we see another massive flash crash, permanently throwing away people's confidence in the markets. Goldman Sachs makes billions through HFT, billions that would otherwise be in the hands of the regular people, instead of the elite.
HFT is just providing volume. They buy shares and immediately sell it. In the big picture, the liquidity remains the same. And how does HFT provide value? They just make it more expensive for both the buyer and seller. They are taking AWAY value.
And why should everyone care? Because if you invest in ETFs or mutual funds, they make big orders, and the HFTs are skimming off those orders, reducing the return on YOUR investment.
How does it provide liquidity or stabilization? It is taking money out of the system. The "normal" trades would have happened without the high-frequency traders. I have yet to hear a single argument for high-frequency trading that makes sense. It seems to me that the big banks have manufactured these arguments to convince the lawmakers to allow them to continue their skimming.
Ha, this is the most lame "watch list" ever. They should just merge the terrorist watch list with the piracy watch list with the rational: Piracy is terrorism. It terrorizes the music and movie industry. Every downloader is like a suicide bomber killing the music/movie industry profits.
Exactly, the CRIA managed to get levies put on blank CDs and DVDs precisely for this purpose. In Canada, people actually get pissed when they try to pass these dumb DCMA laws, and the politicians have a hard time pushing them through. Why risk getting their asses kicked in the polls for these dumb laws. It's democracy at work.
I love the iFire and iShotgun app as demonstrated in this review.
You guys are all pussies. My data is backed up on stone slabs. I don't even need electricity to access my backups.
I for one am a perfect being, I never acci
Why is he changing the normal mode of operation? People are used to it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Exactly, they are essentially trying to sell something of unlimited supply for a very high price. And they have to compete for the limited amounts of money consumers have for entertainment. The music industry needs to figure out how to lower their costs. Maybe fire all their RIAA lawyers. In fact, I hope all successful artists go independent and take control of their profits.
That's a very interesting angle I never thought of. Radio essentially limited our music variety, so we had to buy music to get our desire for variety. It's true for me. With Internet radio, I have even stopped downloading music. I wouldn't be surprised if music piracy is going down with the rise of free Internet radio.
I feel sorry for a guy who's real name is John Doe. He gets blamed for everything!
If you've RTFA, it was just an idea that a German scientist came up with as an application of his organic thin film transistors. First of all, it requires trace amounts of gold, and gold is damn expensive. Second of all, it is very unlikely that electronic circuits will survive in currency for any reasonable amount of time. Currency has to survive a lot of abuse. If this is implemented at all, it would only be used for anti-counterfeiting measures. If this worries you, you should be already worried that currency already has unique serial numbers. In principal, the government could force scanners to read and report the numbers at every cash register.
The best way is for the government to make energy more expensive by taxing it. According to wikipeida, Germany's electricity is 3 times more expensive than the US. If you ever go to Germany, you would see that they have already implemented electricity saving measures. Like timed switches on stairwell/hallway lights. CFLs have been widely used for many years. Incandescent bulbs are still sold, but people prefer to buy CFLs because they will save money. Plus, there's the option to use incandescent bulbs if you want to. No government regulation necessary.
Duh, use a CFL, it uses 80% less power. Which means you can get 40W of heat with only 8W!
Actually, I'm impressed by how LOW the crime numbers are... To me Craigslist seems safer after reading the article.
food prices are going through the roof
You can thank "helicopter" Ben Bernanke for that. His loose money policies are the reason why all commodities are going through the roof.
Me too, I dumped all those fancy browsers. I prefer to use lynx.
Clearly he wasn't careful enough. I'm smart enough to store all my porn in C:\pr0n.
Dude, did you even read the post?
It's just a matter of time, before the Chinese surpass the US in technology research. The way I see it, there is too much overhead running a company. You need spend the resources to file as many patents as possible, then you need to hire an army of lawyers to ensure fend off your competitor's patent suits. While the US companies have to invest many resources to fend off lawsuits, the Chinese will use their resources to reinvest in research. In the future, these Chinese companies may find it's not even worth it to hire an army of lawyers so they can sell their products in the US.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, this literally made me LOL! Good one!