http://twitter.com/search?q=golemxiv

I'm sorry to be such a dunce but what do you mean? It sounds possibly good but I don't know what it means.

I dunno, Obama started with a Supermajority, now he's got a bare majority in one house and a minority in the other. The American people are starting to speak out against profligate Govt spending and maybe some politicians will now start listening.

"Xavier Rolet, LSE chief executive, wants to migrate the exchange's main order book trading platform Sets to new technology that is already in use by Turquoise. The shift would make it faster and more attractive to high-frequency trading firms that generate large volumes."

Those in power are no longer accountable to the people they lead and, ipso facto, democracy has died.

It's the same in the UK. Witness the tiny number of British MPs that were prosecuted for the fraudulent use of expenses – three, and they will probably get a light sentence. Corruption amidst property developers and councils, fraudulent manipulation of postal votes, dodgy deals with IT contractors culminating in projects that are never completed, military contracts that go 4 times over budget, etc, etc.

I could go on, but you all know the score. You're absolutely right DopeAddict, it's all about the money. Show me the money! Full of maggoty goodness!

I'm an atheist, but I wonder if fear of punishment after death is the only means of instilling a moral sense of purpose in people.

As for the liquidity bullshit, as was apparent all along to anyone who looked, the problem wasn't that the banks didn't have enough money to loan, it was that nobody wanted to take out a loan. Who would in this economic climate?

So instead we have QE2, which will go into an attack on some developing country's assets & currency, wherever the next bubble is most easily inflated. They'll try Brazil, probably, though they've started to fight back, taxing capital being taken out of the country.

As ever, the point is to squeeze as much short-term profit out of wherever they can find it, since long-term, relatively low-percentage profits are for chumps.

Who wants to build a business, an industry, a country's economy, when you can speculate, destroy & rake in the cash? Their attitude is "we're all gonna be dead in 50 years anyway, so who gives a shit what kind of world we'll leave for our kids? Fuck 'em."

Now that, my friend , is priceless! 🙂