So THAT's why the banks and Wall Street can never be publicly "arrested" [View all]

[dixiegrrrrl]

Michael Lewis's book Flash Boys is jam packed with revelations about Wall Street.
One of the revelations is this:
the entire Wall Street system reflects the imaginary numbers created by the super fast computer trading, which has been around for years now. In other words, not on real life value.

The traders, for the most part, only know how to use/react to what the computer programs tell them. Much like the blind men and the elephant analogy, they only see the parts of the system they work in.

The computers gallop along their own, actually. Those programs have been created, edited, added onto, so many times that any changes in the code at this point threaten to collapse the system.

and here is the heart stopper:
This model is GLOBAL.
Lewis states that Wall Street "exported" the entire system to global markets by now, so that they all can work on the same information and mechanisms.

think about that for a minute.
Think about how you would unwind a global financial market.
The market that pensions and paychecks and all banking services are based on, across the world.

BIG tiger by the tail indeed.