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Page added on September 30, 2018
Ponzinomics
“Tolerable parasites are those that have minimum pain and cost to the host.“
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY: In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. America is so thrilled.
(LAUGHTER)
I did not expect that reaction, but that’s OK.
(APPLAUSE)
America’s economy is booming like never before. Since my election, we have added $10 trillion in wealth.
Back when horse and dog race results were sent to betting parlors by telegraphy, bookies realized that for a small cut, a telegraph operator could be enlisted to delay racing results long enough for confederates to place sure bets. As the ruse became overused and bettors complained, local bunko squads made busts and grifters moved on. In its next iteration, long con artists created merely the illusion they could delay results, setting up fully staffed, but fake, betting parlors. A “roper” lured the mark in with promises of guaranteed wins.
Today the grifters are licensed stockbrokers, specifically high frequency traders, and the roper is a popular software platform called Robinhood offering unlimited free trades. The marks are millennials, 4 million users lured by the creed of “information should be free” into trading billions on the platform. So how does the service pay itself? Simple — by selling its data to a handful of HF traders, at a premium. With a small investment in the right hardware, the HF traders can get a millisecond-or-more jump on the millennials’ trades (the platform may even have an admin knob that can turn up or down trading speeds) and the HF traders can opt to enter the other side of the trade just before the price rises to reflect the new buy. Millennials pay a few pennies more and the HF traders make their gains on volume.
We’ve designed Robinhood from the ground up for the next generation of newcomers and experts alike.
It’s fast, dead simple and just works.
Where are the bunko squads? There is no need for them in an economy booming like never before, adding $10 trillion in wealth.
While it will likely be some time before it makes it first nickel of profit, Fortune reports Robinhood’s valuation as $5.6 billion, following a Series-D investment round. It is now the second most valuable private fintech startup in the U.S. after Stripe, the online payments company. Its user-base is doubling every 12 months. Its founders say that before long it will be bigger than Bank of America.
In the wire game, the mark may be allowed to place, and win, smaller bets before placing a significantly larger one that he will, of course, lose, generally when a small planned miscommunication leads him to make the wrong bet. In this updated version, the only thing millennials have to lose is their data. Maybe they believe information wants to be free, but whenever anything on the internet is free, the commodity is them. Their small trades are making someone somewhere very, very rich.
The entomologist E. O. Wilson said, “Parasites, in a phrase, are predators that eat prey in units of less than one. Tolerable parasites are those that have evolved to ensure their own survival and reproduction but at the same time with minimum pain and cost to the host.”
Maybe Robinhood is a tolerable parasite, or maybe it is a saprophyte, living on the decay of a dying Empire. It was on the assumption underpinning that second scenario that the audience at the United Nations laughed.
The Great Change by Albert Bates
8 Comments on "Ponzinomics"
onlooker on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 10:00 am
“There’s a sucker born every minute”
P.T Barnum
Outcast_Searcher on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 10:54 am
Gee. Who could have thought, much less known from reviewing a little history, that companies in high growth phases often have huge multiples, even while having losses?
And who could guess, or know by looking at history, that the market sorts these things out. The ones that turn out to be Amazon’s are very successful, but most die off, and yes, the shareholders lose their money.
And wow, a Cassandra site that predicts doom constantly for over a decade is whining about this. How astounding.
And why people think an online broker, with basically no moat, and a big lie for their reason for being, can become wildly profitable — sounds like just desserts for the young, idealistic, and stupid people who think the economy can run without money, even as they expect Santa Claus to pay their huge student loans, etc.
Maybe some of these Cassandra websites should try being right more than, say, 1% of the time about something besides AGW — and earn a SHRED of credibility.
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpcecieDie on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 11:11 am
It is pretty obvious the energy (Joule) is what really matter not money.
It understandable that 500 year ago money we used money to do trade because our understanding of this world was limited because science was just beginning.
We all the knowledge we have today and with the computer power available it is laughable that we are still using money instead of Joule to do trade and manage resource allocation.
Human are so primitive and stupid that I no longer care about them. I love seeing human in pain because I know they deserve it. I love laughing at human being for their stupid.
Human behavior are the greatest show on earth, no point of buying a TV, just watch human behavior and take pleasure at seeing them suffer.
Joule = The joule (/dʒuːl/; symbol: J) is a derived unit of energy in the International System of Units.[1] It is equal to the energy transferred to (or work done on) an object when a force of one newton acts on that object in the direction of its motion through a distance of one metre (1 newton metre or N⋅m). It is also the energy dissipated as heat when an electric current of one ampere passes through a resistance of one ohm for one second. It is named after the English physicist James Prescott Joule (1818–1889).[2][3][4]
Sissyfuss on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 1:54 pm
My goodness, Getavagina. You sound so much more articulate when you use others text instead of your own scribbling.
Anonymouse1 on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 6:33 pm
‘Stock markets’, as they currently, and have existed, are a utter scam. The ‘valuation’ in the so-called ‘market’ is decided by a combination of calculated manipulation by insider elites, and leavened with emotion, rumor and speculation. Add in a lot of wishful and garden variety greed (I can get something for nothing), and you have…….
The amerikan stock market.
In a land the produces nothing except pollution and weapons, all amerika has left, is to invent new ways to fleece the sheep of what little wool they still have left.
makati1 on Sun, 30th Sep 2018 8:06 pm
Anon, and the fleecing will eventually get to the butchering point. I’m waiting for that event to begin. Not long now, I suspect.
Free Speech Message Board on Mon, 1st Oct 2018 1:26 am
Americans think that they are rebels because they are immoral and have tattoos, but maybe the elites want Americans to be immoral since immoral people are easier to blackmail and control.
boney joe on Tue, 2nd Oct 2018 6:10 am
outcast
“And who could guess, or know by looking at history, that the market sorts these things out.”
Where have I heard this line of BS before? That’s right, pre-2008. In case you were asleep, the taxpayers were forced to intervene to save the markets from imploding due to greed and criminal activity on an unimaginable scale.
More pure nonsense from the market guru. Sad.