July 21 2009 WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR SHOOTS?
Oh - those green shoots keep popping up. The economy must be getting better in spite of so many of us still natter about the chasm yawning at our feet. Apple is making money, though you might ponder that this might arise from some psychedelic shoots. But, the shoots in Texas are a withered brown from the second year of drought. There are few shoots in California's central valley since they cut off the water. Meanwhile everything is certainly green here in New England as we turn into the new temperate rain forest. It wasn't supposed to work this way.
For Goldman Sachs, however, the shoots are of gold, tinged though they are with a bit of blood sucked from the public. I try to be cynical but I just can’t keep up. Since Matt Taibbi’s article a couple of weeks ago, it seems that Goldman Sachs knows exactly where to squeeze to milk more in to its treasure chest.
For instance, check out this Daily Kos article on how this computer code Goldman Sachs has been using gave their computer a split second glimpse of where trades were going and then allowed them to profit from the direction. Talk about Market Manipulation. He ends by saying that Matt Taibbi is an optimist.
So, this article registered on my consciousness as important. Then Friday, the Times prints an article Steal This Code which takes the discussion into the weirdest of dead ends. In fact it is so weird that I start wondering if this could be a corporate strategy to redirect attention away from the story by making it kind of a trivialized spite thing. It seems like the story required some rebuttal, so I sent a letter.
To the NY Times
It was sad to see the Times miss the real story leading to July 17th Op Ed Steal This Code. The piece you printed supposedly provided context to the recent arrest of Sergey Aleynikov for the theft of some important software from his former employer, Goldman Sachs.
Unfortunately, Mr. Osinski's "Steal this Code" provided neither useful context nor additional depth to the story. Rather, it seemed to act as a resume piece for Mr. Osinski's personal software chops and giving him a soapbox to steer the public conversation away from the real blockbuster of a story. The real lead seems to be that Goldman Sach's itself was using the disputed software for theft on a truly grand scale.
For the past week there has been significant blog traffic regarding a story which was posted on the Daily Kos. When you learn what this software really does, you might understand why we should all be worried about its implications.
The "stolen" software gives Goldman Sachs an unfair advantage by allowing it to "front run" electronic trades. Simply put, they can use their massive computer might to sniff the data in millions of daily individual stock trades. Goldman can do this because they control so many broker data lines connecting into the major markets. Using mere milliseconds, their computers could tell the nature of the trade and respond by initiating Goldman Sachs counter-trades which would then arrive at market simultaneously with the "stolen" trades. Such an infinitesimal timing edge on each of the millions of daily trades provided Goldman Sachs with a hundred million dollars in extra "profits" per month.
In essences they were profiting by stealing information from the people and companies who sent electronic trades through their system.
However, rather than trying to protect the public's interest in such massive theft, you choose to print some useless insight into the nature of software authoring. Perhaps the New York Times might fear advertiser punishment should it print a story which says; "Goldman Sachs is profiting from theft".
This is too bad because right now, stories of Goldman Sachs criminality would really sell some papers.
Respectfully.
The Times has yet to thank me for my comments. Go Figure.
Daily, I stare in wonder at the green shoots brigade, blossoming with financial company profits, tout the investment opportunities available in the stock market, while the number of storefronts in Lexington with FOR LEASE signs just keep growing.
President Obama is crowing about pulling us back from the brink of financial disaster.
I want some of whatever they are smoking.
Speaking of altered states, it seems to me that we are starting to see the generational reinvention of a bunch of values that those of us on the activist left during the 60s thought we had invented. If you want to go back to the Romantics and the Transcendentalists, they thought they had invented them as well. One interesting article that spins off from that was found on Huffington this week where Ryan Grim connects Apple’s Steve Jobs to the Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD. The implication is that much of the computer revolution was fueled by enhanced perceptions gained in said altered states. I like it.
Actually, there are some interesting green shoots starting to emerge. Friday night, Bill Moyers Journal had on a couple of young environmental activists who seemed more ready to take on the system than the last generation or two’s. It left me with a brief moment of frission as these youngsters seemed less ready to compromise for real change than their parents.
Another sign of optimism, to me at least, also came from, Who’d a thunk it, the Harvard Business Review. They ran a fun piece by Umahir Haque, The Generation M Manifesto, where he tries to have a positive vision of what the Boomers have done to screw things up, and what the next generation (sic) needs to do about it. It’s a nice vision, and visions are needed, but we still have to find someplace which is tying together the possible.
Sometimes you don’t have to go outside the mainstream to see the future, just look with a different eye. For instance, the NY Times ran a story about Korean professionals who are taking menial jobs like as fishermen and farmers, and lying to their families about their job status. It kinda reminds me of the reality two years hence when many of us current professionals will be learning the joys of farming and subsistence living while still pretending that our next great professional challenge is just around the corner.
The problem is, so many of the efforts that fed our “hope” have lost their way.
Today, like many of you, I got another Move On solicitation to help support Obama's health care plan.
And I was also supposed to call Senators Kennedy and Kerry to make sure they supported it.
Oh, and could I donate something to help support the effort to support the plan?
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Dear Move On.org
Guys
I am having a real hard time with the request for donations to support a health plan I don't support.
I worked for Obama, I gave, but now I am waiting for Obama to actually provide some leadership. I am waiting for him to come before the American people and start telling the truth about the inability of Congress to respond on not only health care, but also global warming and the war.
Congress is going to take this guy down because they are owned by somebody else than the American public. Obama has to say so.
I come from Mass, so big deal, I get to call Kennedy Kerry and Markey who already on Obama's side. They would even support him if he took on the Congress.
It looks to me like the corporate bosses informed the New President last January that he had "just the most adorable family". They would sure be sorry if anything happened to that family because security lapsed....
This health care bill doesn't do a thing to control the costs and seems to be a way a way of transferring a lot of working people's monies to the medical industry, insurance company management and the drug monopolies.
When Obama starts talking about how these guys own the Congress and until the country starts understanding which congressmen and senators are sucking on the corporate tit, nothing that the citizens want to happen will, and it is their congresspersons fault. When he does that, I will start donating again.
Thanks
I feel for Barack Obama, I really do. He is hung out there trying so hard not to be an angry black guy and run to the middle, and he is being rolled. The guys who know how to make messages have a bigger brain trust than he does. Sorry guy!
You don’t think so?
Check out this website where you can store your weighty soul. The even advertised it as the real thing in the New Yorker. The thing is really a marketing ploy for a movie.
Obama doesn’t have a chance.
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