I know someone who is a physical therapist with a masters who helps crippled children in a school district. She abandoned two husbands (a college professer a business man) and three children (a daughter in the first marriage and two sons in the second), not to mention a boyfriend who is a minister in her church, after sleeping with him and promising to marry him. One of her coworkers who is a speech pathologist left her husband and children and her husband blew his head off. I don't think what you do for a living says much about what kind of a person you are, or how beneficial you are to society, but the first woman, my ex-wife, sure fools a lot of people who think it does.
If she was really good looking, of course, that is what fools a lot of guys as well. For that matter, some guys aren't even fooled, they just let the wrong head guide them even into something as serious as marriage and family.
Yes, very good looking, and sweet, and "innocent", and "caring". Even sang in the church choir. She fooled me. She had given herself all the proper "credentials". I think she's pretty typical for a woman nowadays. Makes you wonder what a typical doctor or minister, etc., is really like. Anyone you might assume to be a "good" person. You can't tell about a person by how they look or what they do for a living. Saying, for example, that a teacher is someone who contributes to society and a trader is someone who doesn't contribute to society is hogwash. To many people their profession is mainly something they hide behind, a personna, a lie IMO.
I am sorry to hear that you were involved with a psychopath, it happens. Many intelligent and perceptive people have been fooled by the charm of both men and women who have no moral compass. It is hard to trust again once having been bitten by a psychopath. There are no doubt exceptions to every profession. One could even imagine a President of the United States who had once been a practicing alcoholic and coke addict, or a President who cheated on his wife when in office. That some percentage of people in all professions suffer from a lack on integrity outside the scope of their specific profession is not uncommon, nor do I think that will ever change. The problem arises when their ethical and moral deficiencies have an effect on the work that they do in their fields. In most cases, it does not, as evidenced by the number of alcoholics, drug abusers, sex addicts, embezzlers, etc. who attest to having been productive members of society even while practicing their respective addictions in secret. However, my point about trading is that in and of itself, the act of trading is not a profession that serves society directly. Could our society continue to function without trading? Sure. We went nearly a week without any trading during the 911 period. However, could our society function without doctors, lawyers, firemen, teachers, and other professions that are in the "service" industry? 777 P.s. Now we can get a barrage of comments about how we could do better without lawyers, but we couldn't not function without a system of law and those who write the laws, enforce the laws, and defend those innocents who are accused of violating the laws.
I know you weren't posting to me but I can't let this one go by. The week following 911 was abnormal. Our society lived on reserve for a week. It was a week of shock and 'suspended animation.' And when the markets reopened, there was vast discontinuity and disruption of pricing. (And I don't know about you, but if I had a sizeable position of anything, I'd have been hedging somewhere -- the trading that wasn't done here was done on other exchanges). Take the financial markets out of the picture for any length of time and business would grind to a halt (though the "black market" would be very busy). Distribution of goods and services would fail on a large scale. Government would step in and attempt to strongarm the process, which would resemble the 'command economy' which so blessed the Soviets for two generations. Society would grow chaotic and anarchistic in very short order. People just don't realize how important something is until it's gone. It's only a rivet, but enough of them used properly will enable the building of a bridge. Remove the rivets and watch what happens to the bridge.
For the purposes of discussion on this thread, I assumed that trading referred to day trading, not the distribution of goods and services through trading of good, services, and financial instruments. Certainly we need a free market in which buyers and sellers can find an equilibrium between natural supply and demand, and that flow of goods, services and financial instruments does indeed serve society----however day trading could be eliminated and the economic system could still flourish. The "liquidity" argument in support of day trading that some have made is rubbish in my opinion, as a free market would always find the balance between real economic supply and real consumer demand. The whole concept of trading as we know it in the financials dates back to the commodity trading industry, where it really was necessary to have speculators serve a purpose to take the other side of the commercial hedgers. However, taking a position on a futures contract to balance out a hedger does not require it being traded many times a day to eek out a few pennies per trade. Commercial interests need hedges, and they need speculators to take the other side. You notice that I never mentioned in my initial thread that this type of speculation---balancing out the hedger. We do need markets to be sure, and we need free and open markets to have a natural market. However, we don't need daytrading for them to function. 777
Wow Chas, you almost sound like a "liberal". I like this side of you!!! Good to know you have it in you. rs7
all you christian traders are going to hell!!! uh oh!!!! "The 12th canon of the First Council of Carthage (345) and the 36th canon of the Council of Aix (789) have declared it to be reprehensible even for laymen to make money by lending at interest. The canonical laws of the Middle Ages absolutely forbade the practice. This prohibition is contained in the Decree of Gratian, q. 3, C. IV, at the beginning, and c. 4, q. 4, C. IV; and in 1. 5, t. 19 of the Decretals, for example in chapters 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 13. These chapters order the profit so obtained to be restored; and Alexander III (c. 4, "Super eo", eodem) declares that he has no power to dispense from the obligation. Chapters 1, 2, and 6, eodem, condemns the strategems to which even clerics resorted to evade the law of the general councils, and the Third of the Lateran (1179) and the Second of Lyons (1274) condemn usurers. In the Council of Vienne (1311) it was declared that if any person obstinately maintained that there was no sin in the practice of demanding interest, he should be punished as a heretic (see c. "Ex gravi", unic. Clem., "De usuris", V, 5). "
>However, we don't need daytrading for them to function. Not sure wether or not you consider MM and specs to be DTs ? Most of the time, the market would be a lot less efficient without them... On 9/11 especially, the MM did not help on Euronext. The only liquidity available was brought by independent day traders. Most stocks got in dynamic resa mode, or limit down resa. Small investors could get out from traders closing multi-weeks or multi-days shorts. Large institution could start accumulating war stocks from day traders shorting them for a couple of day swings. So, at this point, the independent traders acted as the only liquidity providers. Without them, the market could not function. So, I think your assumption is not true. OHLC