John Adams

Before I went on the exchange, my premiums increased 20% ish every year. Your increases aren't all due to Obamacare. And my point was that as usual, the troll's over generalizations are not accurate. Arguing with the strawman again.

I have an ACA plan. My experience. "The ACA plans have no out of network benefits, " Not true. Mine has great out of network benefits. "high monthly premiums," Not true. Mine are substantially less. " high deductibles" Not true. Mine are peanuts. " and high copayments. " Not true. Ditto, peanuts. "For the average American, the ACA is a step backward." For some, true. Not for me.

Putin is hugely worried about the Ukranian polls.

Mark your calendar: We agree.

Gatorman owns all of you. It's now gotten to the point where it's fun to watch. Keep it up G--you rock.

I just read Woodward's Obama's Wars. I don't recommend it but I'd forgotten that horrible first couple yers of his presidency when he had no control over the generals and everyone was end running him to the media. Few people are "ready" to be president, but there can't have been as many people as ill-prepared as Obama was. His PR machine is much better now but back then, it was a leak a week.

You do realize it's unfathomable to him that no one reads his posts and some of us have him on ignore, right?

I won't pile on. Many of us have been there. That said, even when I was at my poorest, I had to make decisions regarding my meal choices. Sometimes I ate the s%&*-calorie chicken pot pie, sometimes I took 10 minutes and put something together in a crockpot that was good for me and lasted 4 meals. And though I used lack of time as an excuse for my poor meal decisions, you and I both know that's bull ****.

But here's the thing: HFTs unerringly drive up the cost for each transaction I make. That's the pain point. At least when my broker skims, I'm getting a service for it. HFTs just wait to see a trade and front-run it. Again, this is not me complaining that it's illegal. I like the market-based solution that the guy in Lewis's book proposed.

First, I'd hate to hear you when you ARE complaining. Second, just because the store turns most of their profit around the perimeter does not mean that's where the most expensive things are. You can get enough chicken to last a week of meals for $20. Green beans are a good vegetable and they are super cheap. Eggs are one of the best foods you can eat and the stores practically give them away. Apples cost next to nothing. All the sugared processed foods are in the aisles. It's not about cost--it's about choice.

But your broker can't beat HFTs either. The only people who can beat HFTs are faster HFTs. There's no risk in their trades--the money they make is based purely on speed. Maybe the billions they make is not a big tax for the trading system to pay, so it's not a big deal like GG says. Frankly, I am not happy about anyone skimming my money off like that but that's just me.

What perimeter are you complaining about? Perimeter is where the produce, meat, fish reside. You know, the healthy foods. I shop at the local farmer's market and co op. The handful of items not available at those I get online or an occasional trip to the grocery store. Every once in a while when I'm pressed for time, I'll go to the Whole Foods near my office. They have good stuff but I like supporting the local farms and businesses near my house so I try not to overuse Whole Foods. I used to love Wegmans when I was a less healthy eater--they are king of the chain grocery stores for sure.

The HFTs beat the Bloomberg terminals. HFTs do not lose. Their trades are 100% money makers. It's a no risk skim from the top.

HFTs don't provide liquidity in any helpful way to the market. Good liquidity is the money that is flowing and keeps the markets powered in bad times. It involves parties putting their capital at risk, something the HFT skimming does not provide. The flash crashes show what HFTs do when things go south--they head for ze hills muchacho. That's why the fact that HFTs are 60% of all market trades these days is such a huge risk. The next time the market tumbles by, say, 400-500 points in a day, there won't be any HFT liquid in the market because the HFTs will all be on the sidelines not making their giant fraction-of-a-second in-out transactions. They will just be "out." Like others have said, it's not illegal that I know of, but man it "feels" wrong. Finding out an order I just put in and then ensuring I get the worst deal because you bought at the low spread and I now bought at the high--when I have no way to control that--is crappy. The benefit seems to be tighter spreads for sure. But as GG pointed out, I don't know what the cost is of HFTs in the market. To me, it's not much. To most of us, it's not much. Cumulatively, allowing this skimming is a lot. And I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the costs.

Like all of Lewis's books, Flash Boys was a good read. Not Liar's Poker or The Big Short good, but good. It's hard to see how HFT trading is good for the system, especially when some firms are front-running their own clients and it puts the entire system at risk of the flash crashes.

And since 4 of those years have been historically hot, it also means that the ant-GW crowd shouldn't look at that small sample as proof of anything more than it is.

OK, so we agree. And I'm also mocking those who think that 17 years of relative consistency means something. Both are idiots.

Condi is not running of course. I agree with others though: Jeb vs. Hillary might garner the lowest presidential turnout ever--or give a chance to a third party. The electorate can't want that.

You're missing my point. 17 years or 140 years is a blip on the time scale. Trends in 140 years or 17 years are not causal evidence for either side of this debate. The GW people need to get off the 140 trend and the anti-GW people need to get off the 17 year trend.

Those 17 years include some of the hottest on record. A limited record but nevertheless, still those are some hot years. That said, it's a 17 year period...in the history of the earth. Nice sample size. So the point, lost on you, is that concluding a long term climatic trend from any 17 year sample is moronic, and what's more moronic is concluding that GW is wrong based on that particular small sample. It's stoopid^2. And my post had nothing to do with Al Gore but thanks for being a hack and bringing him up.

Indeed. But 17 years? Might as well look out the window in January and decide that it's cold so global warming can't be true. And those 17 years had some of the warmest years on record (140 years of limited recording--ha)! Gaaaaaaah! It's Fox/MSNBC science. At least let's get to CNN level science.

It's her arms. She has good arms.

17 years...with several of them being the warmest in recorded history? Are you sure that's what you want to use to support your argument? There's so much wrong with using that small of a data set--and a small data set that undermines your premise anyways--it's hard to know where to begin. Please go back to quoting the scientist who denies a link between cancer and smoking: You were on firmer ground then.

One thing I won't do is speak for OC. I'm sure he'll pitch in himself. But my take is not that many contest whether there is warming. But the questions are: (1) Is the human contribution to it that big of an impact? (2) The warming that we are seeing is not unprecedented. The earth has been around a long time and has gone through a lot of heating and cooling cycles. (3) What's motivating the proposed laws? Fixing the problem or fear-mongering/power-grabbing/money-grabbing? Thank about it: There is some number being thrown out that developing nations want 100B in compensation per year to deal with global warming. To me, those are all legitimate concerns. Let's say that we are entering a warming trend and it's man-made. Stopping it may be impossible but adapting to it is not.

I've not researched this guy either way but if what you posted is true, that's hilarious. B-parrot is not the most original thinker.