Market Manipulation in the US and the Repeated Failure of Ideology

02-28-2011 • JessesCrossRoadsCafe.blogspot.com/

I am seeing this same sort of 'gaming the markets' across many markets and stocks that the author notes below, especially in those markets amenable to leverage and electric manipulation such as indices driven by futures, options markets, and ETFs which more closely resemble carney games than investment vehicles. There has always been some element of this, but it is starting to become predominant and is driving out the honest trade and investment which cannot compete, in the same manner that the mortgage frauds corrupted and distorted a major sector of the economy and drove out regulation, checks and balances, regulatory oversight, and finally common sense. It is getting to be a bit much, and is going to end badly. It will end badly because like the economy which has been created by the same makers it is hollow, a facade, set up for the benefit of a few who transfer wealth to themselves from the many. As someone wrote to me today: "There aren’t really many good options for people who just want to save some money for retirement and live their lives in the meantime. Not even social security or pensions for 30-year veteran teachers are safe from pirate raids and partisan deconstruction. Everything else available to the ordinary retail and retirement saver has become a Wall Street killing floor."