Wall Street's New Instrument of Greed: Superfast High-Speed Trading
We can thank Krugman and Schapiro for directing attention to these practices, and the next step is to intervene. Main street has borne enough of the burden caused by the me-first, profit-seeking attitudes of these companies.
In Monday’s New York Times, noted economist Paul Krugman’s Op Ed piece draws attention to the proliferation of high-speed trading by the elite on Wall Street, notably Goldman Sachs. Using high-speed trading, Goldman Sachs has already made millions trading stocks. Yes, trading stocks. Not financing infrastructure or lending to startups developing new or better technologies. Just trading. In a related story, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro got it right when she recently called for elimination of the practice of ‘flash’ trading. While the two concepts are subtly different, the net effect is the same for main street: the short end of the stick. For every dollar made on Wall Street, main street more often than not loses a dollar.
Disturbingly, the same financial institutions we spent billions of dollars to save from bankruptcy mere months ago are victimizing taxpayers yet again. We can thank Krugman and Schapiro for directing attention to these practices, and the next step is to intervene. Main street has borne enough of the burden caused by the me-first, profit-seeking attitudes of these companies. Identifying and eliminating unfair stock market practices is an essential step toward fairness.
(Post was prepared with the assistance of David Martin, University of North Carolina 2010)
