Cute. Except the ones suffering the most from the HFT machinations were most likely pension and mutual funds, the ones most folks parents rely on. Not rich fucks or their catered hedge funds.
Vanguard says exactly the opposite is true. Which makes sense: passively managed funds and funds with simple value-based investment parameters don't trade aggressively. On the infrequent occasions when they do trade, they benefit from the reduced cost of trading.
If you have your retirement fund parked in an actively-managed fund where you pay an annual fee to have someone who makes $500,000/yr base continuously push "buy" and "sell" buttons on their computer screen all day, you have bigger problems than HFT.
If you have your retirement fund parked in an actively-managed fund where you pay an annual fee to have someone who makes $500,000/yr base continuously push "buy" and "sell" buttons on their computer screen all day, you have bigger problems than HFT.