6 ms·

Yet another case of NIMBYism. Why does the community get to decide on what is done with private property? A radio tower mast harms nobody, will not significantl

by krapht 10y ago

Yet another case of NIMBYism. Why does the community get to decide on what is done with private property? A radio tower mast harms nobody, will not significantly affect traffic, utilization of public utilities, or pollute. It's telling, the comment at the end. 100,000 pounds? Not enough. We need to extract more from those evil financial companies, because they can afford it. What a naked money grab.

peatfreak 10y ago
I can't tell if you're serious, or this is just brilliant satire.
wlesieutre 10y ago
> What a naked money grab. Whereas high frequency trading is what, exactly? It'd be one thing if the radio tower were needed to serve a useful purpose, but why should they be able to impose it on a community to shave a couple milliseconds off of latency so financiers can play stock market games? Maybe I'm not well educated on the issue, but is HFT not just a gigantic zero-sum arms race where the participants would all love to stop wasting money on it except they're worried that someone else would one-up them by half a millisecond?
- walrus01 10y ago
  It is a really good question whether it is the morally correct thing for ANYONE to aid and abed HFT firms.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    HFT reduces spreads. End users end up benefiting from lower prices. If you wanted to make HFT less of a game, adding much higher precision would help. So instead of pricing in increments of a penny, which is a lot, try, say, 1/100,000th of a penny (8 digit precision on the price). If we accept financial services as a whole to be OK, then HFT certainly is. I'd suggest the book "Dark Pools": https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders-Rigging/dp/0307887189/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51DtN%2BetT1L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&psc=1&refRID=ZN3KREEXAPQ9XZVJ7D5H https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders-Rigging/dp... It describes how automatic trading started. If you're a programmer, you'll probably have your mouth hanging open realising how up-for-grabs so much money was. At least that's how it sounded on reading it.
    - alimw 10y ago
      > HFT reduces spreads. End users end up benefiting from lower prices. Is this really true? It's hard to understand how the fact that one guy can trade with a delay of two microseconds instead of three will benefit the market as a whole. I can tell you it is commonly thought that HFT's profits come at someone else's cost, and that someone else is precisely your "end user". See "front-running".
      - MichaelGG 10y ago
        Front running is when you take your customers' orders, then use that knowledge to cheat them. For instance, your customer gives you an order to buy a stock. You then go and buy a bunch first, then sell to them at a profit. Front running has nothing to do with speed. And since HFT firms don't have customers generally, they simply cannot front run. The profits have come at the cost of other market makers - they're all HFT now. There's also the ability to adjust pricing quickly, so that when some large firm tries to buy or sell a large block, they don't get to avoid price impact as easily.
        dredmorbius 10y ago
        Front-running is precisely what Michael Lewis's Flash Boys is about. The trades intercepted by HFT don't constitute marterial market information which could change the behavior of the trader being front-run. They can only serve, much as with Sysiphus, to take an existing transaction opportunity from them, after having been committed to it.
    - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      Sweet the spreads are reduced. Thanks HFT! I've been up all night worrying about them. Everyone profiting from HFT are trying desperately to convince everyone else that they provide a service and benefit and they just can't understand why normal folks aren't buying it. The amount of power of HFT to move markets is frightening. Like, for example bogus assassination tweet sending the stock markets plunging $136 billion in two minutes* * http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/fake-report-erasing-136-billion-shows-market-s-fragility http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/fake-repor...
- pjlegato 10y ago
  This is a straw man reply. It isn't responsive to the original objection -- why should the government get to decide whether someone can build a radio tower on private property, provided that it doesn't adversely impact anyone else? The proposed use of the tower is irrelevant.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    I don't know what the land use laws are over there, but I can tell you that in the US, the government frequently gets to decide whether someone can build a radio tower on private property. I'm fairly certain if someone bought a plot of land near me and said "I'm building a 1000 ft. tall radio mast for stock trading" they'd be promptly told to fuck off. On the other hand, if a project is being built to provide a public benefit, say for an emergency radio system or something, then variances are more likely.
    - foota 10y ago
      I don't think that answers they question of why the government should be able to do so.
      - wlesieutre 10y ago
        A more extreme example to make a point: because it would be bad if someone could buy up the house next to me, knock it down, and replace it with a sewage plant. At least in the US, a large component of limiting land use is to prevent someone from moving in with some undesirable feature and tanking an entire neighborhood's property values, which in many cases are homes that represent a large fraction of a lot of people's net worth (and retirement funds). Taken too far, this can lead to crazy NIMBYism that keeps anything from being built anywhere, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say "No, you can't put a landfill in the residential area that's been developed here for 150 years." Whether you think a 1000 ft. radio mast falls into that category is up for debate, but a full-on libertarian "I can do whatever I want wherever I want to" system wouldn't lead to very good outcomes.
        10y ago
aaron695 10y ago
> A radio tower mast harms nobody Visual pollution is a thing. And an important thing. Why as a well off society we don't do more about it surprises me. If for some reason noone could see the mast, your point would be 100% valid.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Note that, from the article, this is a town that gets a good chunk of its economy from tourism. (Brits love their holidays.) So something that vacation-goers consider an eyesore could, in fact, cause significant economic damage. It is kind of funny that you use "naked money grab" in defense of HFTs.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Not only that, but a gigantic (literally) liabilty of the company that maintains the tower goes out of business.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
bogomipz 10y ago
Yes, correct its not just a cell tower its 300 meters! It is not in sympathy with the scale of its surroundings. As such it constitutes a blight. It's an eyesore with no public benefit. NIMBYism isn't always a bad thing. Its easy to throw the NIMBY term around when its not your own backyard.
tmnvix 10y ago
There's nothing inherently wrong with NIMBYism. Would you be at all concerned if your neighbour planned to place a radio mast as tall as the eiffel tower in their backyard? The local's concerns are entirely reasonable.

by krapht 10y ago

peatfreak 10y ago

I can't tell if you're serious, or this is just brilliant satire.

wlesieutre 10y ago

> What a naked money grab. Whereas high frequency trading is what, exactly? It'd be one thing if the radio tower were needed to serve a useful purpose, but why should they be able to impose it on a community to shave a couple milliseconds off of latency so financiers can play stock market games? Maybe I'm not well educated on the issue, but is HFT not just a gigantic zero-sum arms race where the participants would all love to stop wasting money on it except they're worried that someone else would one-up them by half a millisecond?

walrus01 10y ago
It is a really good question whether it is the morally correct thing for ANYONE to aid and abed HFT firms.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  HFT reduces spreads. End users end up benefiting from lower prices. If you wanted to make HFT less of a game, adding much higher precision would help. So instead of pricing in increments of a penny, which is a lot, try, say, 1/100,000th of a penny (8 digit precision on the price). If we accept financial services as a whole to be OK, then HFT certainly is. I'd suggest the book "Dark Pools": https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders-Rigging/dp/0307887189/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51DtN%2BetT1L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR208%2C320_&psc=1&refRID=ZN3KREEXAPQ9XZVJ7D5H https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders-Rigging/dp... It describes how automatic trading started. If you're a programmer, you'll probably have your mouth hanging open realising how up-for-grabs so much money was. At least that's how it sounded on reading it.
  - alimw 10y ago
    > HFT reduces spreads. End users end up benefiting from lower prices. Is this really true? It's hard to understand how the fact that one guy can trade with a delay of two microseconds instead of three will benefit the market as a whole. I can tell you it is commonly thought that HFT's profits come at someone else's cost, and that someone else is precisely your "end user". See "front-running".
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      Front running is when you take your customers' orders, then use that knowledge to cheat them. For instance, your customer gives you an order to buy a stock. You then go and buy a bunch first, then sell to them at a profit. Front running has nothing to do with speed. And since HFT firms don't have customers generally, they simply cannot front run. The profits have come at the cost of other market makers - they're all HFT now. There's also the ability to adjust pricing quickly, so that when some large firm tries to buy or sell a large block, they don't get to avoid price impact as easily.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Front-running is precisely what Michael Lewis's Flash Boys is about. The trades intercepted by HFT don't constitute marterial market information which could change the behavior of the trader being front-run. They can only serve, much as with Sysiphus, to take an existing transaction opportunity from them, after having been committed to it.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    Sweet the spreads are reduced. Thanks HFT! I've been up all night worrying about them. Everyone profiting from HFT are trying desperately to convince everyone else that they provide a service and benefit and they just can't understand why normal folks aren't buying it. The amount of power of HFT to move markets is frightening. Like, for example bogus assassination tweet sending the stock markets plunging $136 billion in two minutes* * http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/fake-report-erasing-136-billion-shows-market-s-fragility http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-23/fake-repor...
pjlegato 10y ago
This is a straw man reply. It isn't responsive to the original objection -- why should the government get to decide whether someone can build a radio tower on private property, provided that it doesn't adversely impact anyone else? The proposed use of the tower is irrelevant.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  I don't know what the land use laws are over there, but I can tell you that in the US, the government frequently gets to decide whether someone can build a radio tower on private property. I'm fairly certain if someone bought a plot of land near me and said "I'm building a 1000 ft. tall radio mast for stock trading" they'd be promptly told to fuck off. On the other hand, if a project is being built to provide a public benefit, say for an emergency radio system or something, then variances are more likely.
  - foota 10y ago
    I don't think that answers they question of why the government should be able to do so.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      A more extreme example to make a point: because it would be bad if someone could buy up the house next to me, knock it down, and replace it with a sewage plant. At least in the US, a large component of limiting land use is to prevent someone from moving in with some undesirable feature and tanking an entire neighborhood's property values, which in many cases are homes that represent a large fraction of a lot of people's net worth (and retirement funds). Taken too far, this can lead to crazy NIMBYism that keeps anything from being built anywhere, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say "No, you can't put a landfill in the residential area that's been developed here for 150 years." Whether you think a 1000 ft. radio mast falls into that category is up for debate, but a full-on libertarian "I can do whatever I want wherever I want to" system wouldn't lead to very good outcomes.
      - 10y ago

aaron695 10y ago

> A radio tower mast harms nobody Visual pollution is a thing. And an important thing. Why as a well off society we don't do more about it surprises me. If for some reason noone could see the mast, your point would be 100% valid.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

Note that, from the article, this is a town that gets a good chunk of its economy from tourism. (Brits love their holidays.) So something that vacation-goers consider an eyesore could, in fact, cause significant economic damage. It is kind of funny that you use "naked money grab" in defense of HFTs.

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Not only that, but a gigantic (literally) liabilty of the company that maintains the tower goes out of business.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

bogomipz 10y ago

Yes, correct its not just a cell tower its 300 meters! It is not in sympathy with the scale of its surroundings. As such it constitutes a blight. It's an eyesore with no public benefit. NIMBYism isn't always a bad thing. Its easy to throw the NIMBY term around when its not your own backyard.

tmnvix 10y ago

There's nothing inherently wrong with NIMBYism. Would you be at all concerned if your neighbour planned to place a radio mast as tall as the eiffel tower in their backyard? The local's concerns are entirely reasonable.