Almost Classical

On April 18, 2014, the city of Providence, R.I. , added to the growing list of lawsuits against exchanges, brokers, and HFT specialists. This demonstrates the power of narrative. The Lewis book,  Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt , contains nothing new, no breaking story or previously unpublished information. But, Lewis' ability to tell a story and tell it well compels politicians to respond. Remember, state attorneys general run for office; public officials remain politicians, not mere lawyers. As the media and voting public demand action, the financial industry faces growing pressures. This happened with tech stocks (how VC were taxed), the home lending industry, and now HFT. Laws pass on emotion, seldom offering good solutions to perceived problems. The lawsuits relating to HFT will culminate in regulatory changes, if not outright wins in court. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/18/highspeed-classaction-idUSL2N0NA0XC20140418 (Reuters) - Dozens of the largest U.S. stoc...

Instead of blogging everything I read or hear, I use Twitter to promote the better content I encounter online. https://twitter.com/almostclassical Twitter seems to be the replacement for RSS feeds, sadly. I miss the old, text-centric days of newsgroups, mailing lists, and feeds. Oh, well. The market has spoken. 

The "Great Sort" at the local and state level, not the evils of redistricting, has changed our government — and, more importantly, our national discussions on all issues. And I do mean all  issues, because studies show left/right; progressive / liberal / libertarian / conservative; secular/religious; North / South / East / West; and other ways to group people correlate to music choices, television viewing, trust in government, and much more. How can we prove that redistricting isn't the villain behind our political discourse? Easily: we look at the Senate, which should represent entire states, not statistically modeled and gerrymandered districts. Yet, the Senate, supposedly the great deliberative body of our government, has become little more than yet another left-right battleground. The ideological middle is dead in Congress. Really dead. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/10/the-ideological-middle-is-dead-in-congress-really-dead/ BY CHRIS CIL...