Category Archives: Rant
Of course they will,… why wouldn’t they??
There are still people that will tell you the average guy on the street should back himself up financially with ” some smart stock choices”
But this is what you will be competing with. There are absolutely no ethics involved. I think that’s a fair statement.
The “average guy” will,…. on average,…. come out on the short end of this kind of deal. Don’t you think?
Unless you’re equipped to keep up with the ” trade ever faster, using lasers and microwaves ” scenario. Maybe my friend Toph can get me hooked up,…. he’s in the laser business.
Chris-Toph…… think you could set me up with one of them new-fangled really quick laser thingys that you play with?? I’d like something in the 2 or 3 millisecond response range,….. so that I can keep up with the rest of the boys. Get back to me on that.
Anyway, no use ranting. This appears to be an absolutely fair, reasonable, practice. The playing field is very, very level here.
Here’s the article from Mark Gongloff at the Huffpost
High-Frequency Trading Is Bad For Profits, Including Those Of High-Speed Traders: Study
High-frequency trading is bad for everybody, including high-frequency traders, according to new research from a university that produces economic reports that are sold early to high-frequency traders.
Congratulations, world, these are your modern financial markets. The study, by the University of Michigan’s engineering department, focuses on one particular tactic of high-speed trading, known as “latency arbitrage.”
This is the practice of gaming the split-second lags between the time trades are made and the time those trades are crunched by a central clearing house called the Security Information Processor into a price quote called the National Best Bid And Offer. Traders with super-fast computers can calculate the NBBO faster than the Security Information Processor can do it, and they take advantage of the tiny gaps between the old NBBO and the new NBBO.
The researchers say this trade somehow reduces the total amount of profits in the system — in other words, it not only hurts regular, slowpoke investors, but also other high-speed traders. Whatever profit each individual robot makes on a latency arbitrage trade is less than the amount of profit that is destroyed by the practice, according to the report. This is just more evidence that zapping thousands of trades per second does nothing for society.
High-speed trading’s defenders, including academics whose research is bankrolled by high-speed trading firms, claim that this sort of foolishness improves market function and makes trading cheaper for everybody, which gives investors more money to spend on puppies and charity and whatnot.
But the University of Michigan researchers, who were paid by grants from the National Science Foundation, say the latency arbitrage trading they studied actually hurts market efficiency by widening the spread between the prices that buyers will pay and the prices that sellers will accept.
Ironically, the University of Michigan has recently been involved in a scandal-like brouhaha involving high-speed trading. The university produces a monthly consumer-sentiment index that it sells to Thomson Reuters for $1 million per year. For a fee, Reuters gives traders a look at these sentiment numbers five minutes before the rest of the suckers on Wall Street see it. For an even bigger fee, high-speed traders can get the numbers five minutes and two seconds before everybody else, giving them time to make high-speed trades on the numbers.
The university told CNBC that it thought the arrangement didn’t violate any regulations and that it could not produce the sentiment index without the money it gets from Reuters. Reuters said it has always made these arrangements public knowledge.
It’s not clear just how much money high-speed traders can make on sneak peeks at consumer-sentiment data, or on latency arbitrage or other shenanigans. Obviously trading firms think there is gold in them thar milliseconds, as they have been steadily ramping up their efforts to trade ever faster, using lasers and microwaves.
Still, there are signs that the growth of high-speed trading has stalled, Bloomberg Businessweek noted earlier this month, with trading volume and profits falling. Maybe traders are figuring out they’re mainly taking from themselves.
To Hurricane Sandy Survivors – Merry Christmas from David Koch
I don’t write much. So far, I’ve found that I’m not much of a writer. Maybe some day I’ll put a little effort towards trying to change that. Maybe.
So I just like to try to get a point or two across.
Here’s my very Christmassy point for today.
F#%k you, David Koch. You rich, subsidized bastard. Keep your oil money, but leave the helping of others to people with hearts. Stay out of the way.
From The Nation
David Koch Now Taking Aim at Hurricane Sandy Victims
Lee Fang on December 22, 2012 – 2:35 AM ET
Billionaire David Koch’s prime political organization, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), having failed in its $125 million quest to oust President Barack Obama, is now aiming at a slightly less sophisticated political target: victims of Hurricane Sandy.Hurricane Sandy was the second most costly in American history, leaving 100 lives lost, over $50 billion in devastation and tens of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes. Legislative efforts to help those who survived Hurricane Sandy’s wrath will reach a major stumbling block.
Earlier this week, AFP, which is chaired by Koch and believed to be financed by several other plutocrats from the New York City region, released a letter warning members of Congress not to vote for the proposed federal aid package for victims of the storm that swept New Jersey, New York City and much of the surrounding area in October. An announcement on the group’s website says that the vote next week for the Sandy aid package will be a “key vote”—meaning senators who support sending money for reconstruction could face an avalanche of attack ads in their next election. Already, opposition to the bill is growing, although it passed one procedural hurdle last night.
There is some legitimate criticism with aspects of the legislation, including the fact that some of the money will go to non-Sandy related reconstruction efforts in disaster areas. For AFP, however, the whole bill must die and victims of the storm deserve no help from the government.
Koch’s top deputy in New Jersey, a surly gentleman named Steve Lonegan, who heads the local AFP state chapter, called the aid package a “disgrace.” “This is not a federal government responsibility,” Lonegan told reporters. “We need to suck it up and be responsible for taking care of ourselves.”
Cry Boycott! Let Loose the Dogs of Capitalism!
I try to be at least somewhat socially conscious, when spending my money. I avoid the likes of Walmart because I find them an awful organization, in the way they treat their employees, their effect on local communities, etc. Yet I do shop with Amazon, which has a less than stellar track record, but are not approching the ‘evil’ threshold that a Walmart does in my eyes. What I am saying is there is a pick and choose aspect to it for me. I have never been much for the boycott thing, because most of the time when a lefty boycott comes to the fore, I don’t shop there anyway. Chik-Fil-A … I stopped patronizing that joint ages ago when I became aware of the owners beliefs. So the recent boycott – no problem. If ya agree with them eat there, if you don’t then don’t. And that’s pretty much how I look at it.
This recent bit with the restaurant chain owners coming out against Obamacare … this really pisses me off. I mean it is one thing to piss and moan about how much it is going to cost the companies (which isn’t a lot with respect to revenues), threaten to raise prices, or offshore (which they can’t do – HA!). It is entirely another thing to say you are going to actively screw your employees in order to not have to comply with the law. Papa John’s is the best example thus far. The company has revenue in excess of $1.2 billion, yet they are going totally apeshit about having to pay $5-8 million a year to provide health care for their employees, a cost Forbes (no bastion of liberalism) has estimated would translate into an average price increase of a five cents per pizza. Papa John’s response? To screw their employees by cutting their hours so they don’t have to comply, rather than charge an extra 5 cents per pizza. Seriously?!? you are so rabidly capitalist and self absorbed you are going to screw your employees over 5 cents per pie? Over an amount that is about one half of one percent of your annual revenues? Because offering them health insurance is so awful?
“Fuck you” is about all I can come up with … that and I am not going to be giving you one red cent for your crappy pizza.
Now by no means is Papa John’s alone in this, they have just gotten the most press. The chain restaurant industry in general has made similar rumblings: Denny’s, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Applebee’s.
I ask that you think about where your restaurant dollars are spent, and that if you agree with my take, not to spend your money at these establishments. Again this isn’t hard for me, I don’t eat at these restaurants anyway. I choose to take my dinning out business to locally owned restaurants. They tend to treat the workers better, have better food, better service, and my money stays around home – so I make an active decision to give them my business. In Papa John’s case I am going to have to be a little more proactive. I work at a university, and we have a Papa John’s right off of campus, so they get a lot of business in providing munchies for lectures and gatherings. I will be talking to various people and organizations that sponsor talks and lectures to try and get them to refrain from buying their pizza.
Papa John’s – No More
I use Papa John’s fairly regularly.
No more. You make your point, Papa John Schnatter,…… I’ll make mine.
Anyone who throws this much bullshit spin towards accomplishing nothing more than making a political statement,……… a friggin’ political statement about needing to be able to refuse health care for his employees.
To hear the son of a bitch talk, you’d think this was going to break his company.
Apparently it won’t.
You know…… I would have no problem kicking another 14 cents towards a damn pizza if I knew it was to help someone get a blood test done at some point in time.
Sick, sick people.
Breaking Down Centi-Millionaire ‘Papa’ John Schnatter’s Obamacare Math CalebMelby
John Schnatter wants to raise the cost of your pizza in response to new health care costs.
Papa John Schnatter is no fan of Obamacare. The CEO of Papa John’s International has occasionally railed against the reform for months. Leading up to the election, he was a Mitt Romney supporter and fundraiser. Now that the election is over, he’s doubling down on his claim that the health care reform will force his company to increase pizza prices by 10-14 cents a pie. He estimates that Obamacare will end up costing his company $5-8 million annually.
The issue: the Affordable Care Act dictates that full-time employees (30 hours or more per week) at companies with more than 50 workers need to be provided health insurance. Schnatter has further claimed that some employers will cut employee hours to avoid providing them with healthcare.
Last year, Papa John’s International captured $1.218 billion in revenue. Total operating expenses were $1.131 billion. So if Schnatter’s math is accurate (Obamacare will cost his company $5-8 million more annually), then new regulation translates into a .4% to .7% (yes, fractions of a percent) expense increase. It’s difficult to set that ratio against the proposed pie increase, given size and topping differentials, but many of their large specialty pizzas run for $16. Remarkably, a 10-14 cent increase on a $16 pizza falls in a comparable range: .6% to.9%. But the cost transference becomes less equitable if you’re looking at medium pizzas, which run closer to $12, meaning a .8% to 1.15% price increase.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Papa John’s sells exactly half medium/half large specialty pizzas. Averaging the ranges for both sizes, then averaging that product yields a .86% price increase — well outside the range of what Schnatter says Obamacare will cost him.
So how much would prices go up, under these 50/50 conditions, if they were to fairly reflect the increased cost of doing business onset by Obamacare? Roughly 3.4 to 4.6 cents a pie.
In September, the company announced that it would be giving away 2 million free pizzas. That was, of course, a promotion designed to increase brand awareness and to invite consumers to try the brand — with the ultimate goal of selling more pizzas. Those giveaways can’t really be cataloged alongside sales that would have been made otherwise. But just in case you’re curious, that would be the equivalent of $24 million to $32 million in pizza revenue.
A List of People Who Can Kiss My Ass
Not counting my chickens just yet. Buuut now that it is over, here is the list of people who can KISS MY ASS
Karl Rove
Dick Morris
Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
Todd Akin
Scott Brown
Richard Murdoch
Joe Walsh (not the musician)
John Boehner
Eric Cantor
Mitch McConnell
GOP Rape Advisory Chart
Are you confused by the constantly changing, and increasingly loony GOP stance on rape? Worry no more! Here is a concise summary of the GOP standing …
If Paul Ryan Had Any Sense of Decency, He Would Stop This …..So I’m Betting He Won’t
I was about to post something condemning this.
But Jed Lewison at The Daily Kos did a better job than I could with it.
I’ll just say that this republican/conservative bunch has morphed into something very sick and scary.
It’s a soup kitchen for God’s sake,…. they feed hungry, homeless people.
In the comments section, you’ll find a way to donate to help these people out if you’re so inclined.
Fri Oct 19, 2012 at 06:30 AM PDT
Angry Republicans target soup kitchen where Paul Ryan staged photo-op
by Jed LewisonFollow for Daily Kos
Paul Ryan shows his empathy by washing already-clean dishes during soup kitchen
This is really awful:
In the wake of Rep. Paul Ryan’s embarrassing soup kitchen photo-op last week, the organization that runs the facility tells The Huffington Post that donors have begun pulling their money out of the Youngstown, Ohio charity.Ryan may have suffered a few late-night jokes, but the fallout for the soup kitchen appears to be far more bruising. Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, confirmed that donors have begun an exodus in protest over Ryan’s embarrassment. The monetary losses have been big. “It appears to be a substantial amount,” Antal said. “You can rest assured there has been a substantial backlash.”
In addition to the financial backlash from angry Republicans, the charity has been the target of angry phone calls and Facebook postings.
Ryan supporters have now targeted Antal and his soup kitchen, Antal said, including making hundreds of angry phone calls. Some members of Antal’s volunteer staff have had to endure the barrage as well, he said. “The sad part is a lot of [the callers] want to hide behind anonymity,” he said, adding that if someone leaves their name and number he has tried to return their call. In addition to phone calls, people have posted a few choice words on the charity’s Facebook wall, including statements like “I hope you lose your tax [sic] emempt status,” Anyone who is thinking about donations to you should think twice” and “Shame on you Brian Antal!”
These people would do well to remember that Paul Ryan is the onewho invited himself to the soup kitchen for a photo-op. Paul Ryan is the one who washed clean dishes in the hopes of scoring political points. And if Republicans are made about it, they’ve got no one to blame but Paul Ryan. The last thing in the world they should do is take it out on the charity—and the homeless and hungry people who depend on it.
::
photo-op
Study it Out……. ??????
Wherever the hell that comes from.
Ignorance?? Stupidity??
Or just plain crazy.
Remarkable,…… “Just because he was born here doesn’t mean that he thinks like us”
Lady……. I don’t think like you either.
More Free Market “Self-Correcting”
Free market ……..
Self-correcting……
These things will take care of themselves…….
De-regulate…….
F#*k-off….. I don’t give a damn if the “job creators” have more “certainty”.
“Massachusetts has just five inspectors for more than a thousand compounding pharmacies that make drugs.” That’s not fiscal competence,…. that’s insanity.
From balloonjuice
The Market Will Correct This
By John Cole October 11th, 2012
Read this and you’ll see we don’t really need regulations or regulators:
Diana Reed tried massage and acupuncture, but neither eased her neck pain. She may have injured herself while helping her husband, Wayne, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease, in and out of his wheelchair.
“Diana kind of became Wayne’s arms, legs and voice,” her brother, Bob Bergeson, said.
Mrs. Reed, 56, a healthy, vigorous woman who ran or swam every day, decided to try a series of epidural steroid injections for her neck trouble. She had been laid off from her job at a nonprofit group and wanted the treatments before her health insurance ran out.
It was a decision that ended her life. She died on Oct. 3, one of more than 130 people to have contracted meningitis in a national outbreak from a tainted drug used in spinal injections for back and neck pain. So far, 12 have died.
The drug has been recalled, but still more people are likely to become ill in the coming weeks, because the incubation period can be longer than a month. About 13,000 people injected with the drug are anxiously waiting to see if symptoms develop. The product is a steroid called methylprednisolone, which was contaminated with one or more types of fungus. It was made by a pharmacy in Massachusetts, the New England Compounding Center, and shipped to 23 states.
The company has shut down, and Massachusetts health officials said Wednesday that they had extended their investigation to Ameridose, another drug manufacturer in the state that is partly owned by Barry Cadden, who was the chief pharmacist at New England Compounding.
Mr. Cadden surrendered his pharmacy license this week, state officials said. Massachusetts has just five inspectors for more than a thousand compounding pharmacies that make drugs.
See- we didn’t even need those five regulators, because the market has already reacted. The company that made the drugs is shut down. Voila. The free market at work. Consumers now know not to buy steroid injections from this particular pharmacy.
I’m Getting Annoyed
With all this media hype and garbage I keep hearing about Romney’s dominating that debate, and Obama not really showing up.
I suppose that at some level there’s some truth to that.
But this is what I saw,……
I saw in Mitt Romney a man that’s been a consistent, chronic liar since I first heard him speak.
And I saw that chronic, compulsive liar in the debate that night doing the same thing he’s always done. Lie through his teeth in a very, very public forum. No qualms, no stage fright on a big platform,….. in fact I think the magnitude of the event pumped him up.
The difference that everyone seemed to think was exceptional, was that he was on his game. When in actuality he was just doing the usual,….. but doing it really well that night.
Try some of these …….
http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/
In other words he lied more confidently and more emphaticly than usual.
Now, (from watching too, too many of the Sunday morning talking heads today), I hear a lot about Romney dominating, but not so much about the fact that it was all bullshit.
Which leads me to wonder just how much truth there is in this quote that I’ve seen a lot in the last few days,…… and hope that there’s not as much as there appears to be.
“‘You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it,’observed Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, ‘so what? Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000.'” – New York Times, November 1, 1984
Bill Nye Blasts Todd Akin, Challenges ‘Fucking Idiot’ to Debate
This is one of the greatest, funniest, and most “absolutely-correct-to-do” things that I’ve seen in a long, long time.
God-damn good for you, Bill Nye the Science Guy !!
Update: Looks like I’ve been had. This is a spoof, — from a spoof type site. Seems I was very, very willing to believe, .. along with more than a few other people.
Now, I just sit back and wish it were true. I’d pay good money to hear Bill Nye actually do it.
From The Daily Currant
Bill Nye Blasts Todd Akin, Challenges ‘Fucking Idiot’ to Debate
August 30th, 2012
Bill Nye may still be The Science Guy, but he’s no longer Mr. Nice Guy.
During a live interview this morning with the Smithsonian Channel, the mild mannered science educator unloaded on U.S. Congressman Todd Akin, calling him “a fucking idiot” for accusing Nye of personally provoking Hurricane Issac.
Last week Nye uploaded a video to Youtube urging parents not to teach their children creationism. At a town hall campaign event yesterday, Akin used the video as an example of immoral behavior driving god to punish America through extreme weather.
Although reporters reached out to Nye for a statement yesterday, his first discussion of the matter came this morning at Smithsonian’s Washington D.C. headquarters.
Nye Got a Feeling…
The 56 year old star of the long-running “Bill Nye The Science Guy” was in the studio to promote his new documentary series focusing on the neuroscience of childhood development.
After briefly discussing his show, the Smithsonian anchors asked Nye about Akin’s recent accusation. The normally genial Nye wasted no time venting his rage about the comments:
“Look, these people they’re fucking retarded. Rape can’t cause pregnancy? Breastmilk cures homosexuality? I caused a hurricane by challenging creationism? Who can possibly take these people seriously anymore?”
The slightly uncomfortable anchors then tried to change the subject, but Nye persisted:
“It used to be these Republicans didn’t believe in global warming or evolution. That was bad enough. Now they don’t even believe in egg + sperm = baby. Where does Todd Akin think babies come from? Does he think there are separate storks for people who were raped and people who weren’t? ”
“Hey look over there! It’s the rape stork. It drops its babies directly at the orphanage.”
“He’s a fucking idiot. Just a plain fucking idiot. I’m sorry – I don’t say that word very often – but it happens to fit in this case. He’s just a fucking idiot.”
A Decent Proposal
As the stunned anchors hurriedly tried to wind the conversation down and cut to commercial, Nye stared directly into the camera and issued a challenge to his new-found rival:
“So Todd I got an offer for you. You and me. Any time. Any place. Debating science mano- a-mano. I’ll bring the facts, and you bring the Vaseline. Because your ass is gonna fucking need it when I’m done whipping.”
Nye apologized once more for his language before ripping off his microphone and walking off the set.
Representatives of the Smithsonian Channel say they have no comment on the incident.
Bill Nye could not be reached, but a since-deleted tweet on his Twiiter account posted shortly after the incident read:
“@ToddAkin Never enter the eye of Hurricane NYE!”
Bill Maher on how the GOP has gone insane
I think Republicans live in a world now where whatever a liberal says, no matter how sensible, is automatically evil, wrong, and needs to be fought with the fervor of a starving raccoon on crystal meth.
If Michele Bachmann… (grumbles) if Michele Bachmann…. If Michelle Obama (everyone cracks up) says it’s good to eat vegetables and take a walk, then I’m going to sit in my garage with the car running and eat bacon grease out of a coffee can.
When the Pennsylvania Board of Education last year tried to serve less candy to students in a good faith effort to stop our children from becoming completely spherical, Sarah Palin literally rushed to Pennsylvania with a plate of sugar cookies. “Here you go, fat kids! Have a big old face full of freedom!” Oh yes, Sarah Palin, the Rosa Parks of dessert.
I mean, why? Why? Because not having diabetes is a liberal plot? If you can see your shoes, then you hate America? What is it with the pushing back on the formerly unpushbackable? Newt Gingrich attacking child labor laws. Ron Paul saying it’s socialist for the government to help people after tornadoes? Arguing about paying our bills? And college! Santorum called Obama a “snob” for wanting kids to go to college, and Romney said he spent too much time at Harvard. Right, because what America needs is a President who dropped out of massage school. (audience applause)
Time to Kill the “Defense Spending” Holy Cow
As you all know now, the Republicans are trying to weasel out of the Debt Ceiling Deal of which they were architects. The Supercommittee failed both stunningly and predictably, triggering ‘sequestration’ which is just a fancy word for mandatory cuts. As part of this sequestration both non-military discretionary and military spending are to suffer equal reductions in spending of $600B each over the next 10 years. But the Republicans are now screaming, “we will hollow out the military, we can not let this go forward!”. In the Senate there was introduced the “Down Payment to Protect National Security Act of 2012″ which, according to Senator Rubio’s website:
Senator Rubio joined Senators Kyl, McCain, Graham, Cornyn, and Ayotte in introducing The Down Payment to Protect National Security Act, legislation which overrides the automatic, across-the-board cuts to our nation’s defense capabilities, which are scheduled to take effect in 2013 unless Congress acts. Instead of making severe cuts to the Department of Defense that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has warned would be “devastating to the defense budget” and would “weaken our national defense,” This bill replaces the scheduled cuts by reducing the federal workforce and extending the current pay freeze for federal workers. By doing so, the legislation ensures the debt reduction targets laid out in the Budget Control Act are still on track to be met –without endangering our national security at a time when threats both at home and abroad remain very real.
This pretty much dead on arrival, So the House is now putting up the Ryan Budget version 2.0, the major upgrade from 1.0 being the focusing of the ‘message’ on no military cuts as opposed to the evisceration of Medicare (which is still there). The military is protected from cuts by savaging domestic programs.
Now my question to the GOP is, “Are you fucking kidding me ?!?!” The Defense Department budget accounts for 20% of federal spending on paper. If you include other security and military functions under the umbrella of defense spending you are looking at 25-30% of our budget, depending on how you count things such as Homeland Security (not to mention the US accounts for ~40% of worldwide military spending). In the last ten years military spending has amounted to well over 6 trillion dollars … 6 … TRILLION. Yet, noooooooo, cutting this is off of the table. It is just fine, however, to recoup all these missing savings on the backs of seniors, the poor, our transportation infrastructure, our educational infrastructure, etc.
Man oh man was Eisenhower sadly prescient ..
Regret
sooo, Nicolas Cage arrested and booked … looks … not happy … “I did bad”
Same with Nick Nolte
And yeah … James Brown had a very, very, bad bust
But Rush … Rush gets booked and looks like he is posing for publicity photos. The man has NO sense of shame. He so lacks any sense of responsibilty, he smiles for a booking photo … and blames ‘liberals’ because he called a young woman a slut because she advocated birth control. You sir … are a prick
Desert Dogmeh 