Stock trading is evil mega smackdown thread

[Captain Murphy]

[Rhapsody]

[rednblacklumberjack]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Mr. Perfect]

[rednblacklumberjack]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Mr. Perfect]

We could do a treatise on the economic benefits of bearish positions, but I think it may merit a new thread.

[Rhapsody]

Mr. P. what do you suggest what should change in the financial industry to make it function better and more safe. I will stubbornly stick to a consensus opinion here at least, that it is badly regulated, that the structures as they exist are outdated, that commercial and investment banking should become separate cicuits again, more transparancy, more controls...

I agree entirely with you that government and fed interferences tend to destroy the baby rather sooner than late. But also that is the result of bad regulations and controls. Obviously I'm not a believer in blindly create regulations for the sake of regulations; I'd say rather less and better regulations but applied to a safer and newly designed architecture. Simplification also seems useful.

[Mr. Perfect]

[Rhapsody]

Mr P. You have to reboot to get my point.

The financial industry is not working properly, to say the least... It is in principle not different from any other industry. Or sports game. If a sports game is designed well, it wil have a proper set of rules and controls. Rules, controls and ability to enforce those rules are core requirements. Different combinations of things can destroy the game of course. Rules can be ok, design of the game excellent, controls are there...but the enforcement can be totally lacking. People will play on the limits of what is allowed... try do things unseen; preferably the referee didn't notice your faul. If he noticed but was bribed to look the other way... can seriously damage the quality of the game. Or rules, controls and enforcement are fine, but it turns out the design of the game itself was faulty, or there is a mismatch between rules and design.

So I'm trying to understand where the faults are in the financial industry, which combination of factors added up to where we are now. And governments should not be left out of the equation.

I hold it for possible that the game that is the financial Industry is simply too big, too complex as it is intertwined with the entire web of human societies on our globalizing world... Simply very hard to manage, to regulate, control, enforce to begin with. We may have to accept, which seems to be your suggestion between the lines, that it is out of control and will run its own course down, up down, down... dooooown. That this forest needs to burn down before we can even think of something new.

[monster_gardener]