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> if your firm created no value for society, it would go out of business. This is silly wishful thinking. There are plenty of businesses that are sustainably b

by 55555 9y ago

> if your firm created no value for society, it would go out of business. This is silly wishful thinking. There are plenty of businesses that are sustainably built on screwing people over or simply extracting money from them. > What value are financial services? I don't think he's talking about financial services like retail banking. I think he's talking about HFT activities other than market making. Legal front-running, etc.

closeparen 9y ago
>screwing people over or simply extracting money from them. People enter these transactions because there's something in it for them, even if you think it's too little.
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  So you are upset they didn't say "approaches no value" instead of "no value"?
  - closeparen 9y ago
    It’s literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value. It may be the case that they can sustainably offer deals you wouldn’t take, but how we get from there to the business being immoral, useless, or deserving of a ban is more nebulous. If people are systematically taking deals you wouldn’t, there might be a broad societal problem (why is tht crappy situation anyone’s best option?) or an information problem (why don’t they know better?) but the business offering the deals is probably not a logical or useful target if you want to address the larger problem.
    - thomastjeffery 9y ago
      > It’s literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value. That depends entirely on the definition of "value". If a business exists solely to move money/stock around, that action does not create "value", in the sense that juggling oranges does not create "value". Trading stocks is an effort to take advantage of the fluctuating relative value each stock has, so that individuals can take home the "profit". Such "profit" is not created, but sifted out of the economy. Is that 100% worthless? No, but it's darn close.

by 55555 9y ago

closeparen 9y ago

>screwing people over or simply extracting money from them. People enter these transactions because there's something in it for them, even if you think it's too little.

thomastjeffery 9y ago
So you are upset they didn't say "approaches no value" instead of "no value"?
- closeparen 9y ago
  It’s literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value. It may be the case that they can sustainably offer deals you wouldn’t take, but how we get from there to the business being immoral, useless, or deserving of a ban is more nebulous. If people are systematically taking deals you wouldn’t, there might be a broad societal problem (why is tht crappy situation anyone’s best option?) or an information problem (why don’t they know better?) but the business offering the deals is probably not a logical or useful target if you want to address the larger problem.
  - thomastjeffery 9y ago
    > It’s literally incorrect that businesses can sustainably provide no value. That depends entirely on the definition of "value". If a business exists solely to move money/stock around, that action does not create "value", in the sense that juggling oranges does not create "value". Trading stocks is an effort to take advantage of the fluctuating relative value each stock has, so that individuals can take home the "profit". Such "profit" is not created, but sifted out of the economy. Is that 100% worthless? No, but it's darn close.