[Frondo]

The alternative to HFT is not the real estate market.

The alternative to HFT is how the markets operated for decades prior to HFT companies vacuuming money out of the system--that is, quite well, and with adequate liquidity, and with lots of money still being made.

[tptacek]

The markets in the decades before HFT were crooked like a bucket of fish hooks! They were NOTORIOUSLY corrupt. Everyone was scamming everyone else. The entire market was a giant grift. Are you really sticking up for 1980s trading? Or have you just not done much research about how it worked?

[Frondo]

Really? And now, with HFT, they're no longer crooked? If I remember right, in the 2000s we've seen a ton of crooked market scandals (fraudulently rated securities, LIBOR, etc etc). I don't see this relationship you're positing between HFTs and a non-corrupt trading market at all.

[tptacek]

That's an illogical response.

[Frondo]

You said: prior to HFTs the markets were corrupt, the entire market was a giant grift.

You implied that, without HFT companies, we'd be right back there, though I see now that you didn't explicitly say exactly that.

[tptacek]

For your argument to make sense, all forms of corruption would need to have a single cause, and all interventions to reduce corruption would need to impact all forms of corruption. That's nonsensical and not a point I'm willing to engage further with.

I think we've pushed this thread far enough to the right margin of the page.

[Frondo]

I get that you're passionate about HFTs, but what's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.