I hope PM, Dep PM and MAS read this.
New York official seeks curbs on high-frequency traders
Tue Mar 18 15:02:13 UTC 2014
By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's attorney general urged U.S. stock
exchanges and other venues on Tuesday to limit services that he said
provided unfair advantages to high-frequency traders and undermined
confidence in the markets.
The stock exchanges allow traders to locate their computer servers
within trading venues, armed with extra network bandwidth and high-speed
switches that give them access to pricing, volume and order information
ahead of others, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
"Rather than curbing the worst threats posed by high-frequency traders,
our markets, as structured today, are increasingly too focused on
catering to them," he said in prepared remarks at a symposium hosted by
New York Law School.
Schneiderman has begun meetings with the exchanges and alternative
trading venues to discuss reforms, according to a person familiar with
the situation.
A spokeswoman for the New York Stock Exchange declined comment. A Nasdaq
spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.
Among the practices Schneiderman called into question were
"co-location," which allows firms who pay a fee - typically thousands of
dollars a month - to locate their computer servers within the
exchanges' data centers.
Co-location reduces by milliseconds the time it takes to transmit, long
enough for "predatory" high-speed traders to benefit and for the markets
to suffer.
For instance, he said, the traders look for arbitrage opportunities
between and among venues to capture momentary differences in stock
prices.
The firms also artificially inflate prices, he said, by detecting a big
trade from an institutional investor and positioning themselves on the
other side.
Institutional investors have been forced to develop strategies to hide
their orders from these traders, such as by routing the orders into
alternative venues known as "dark pools," which are less regulated,
Schneiderman said.
He suggested reforms for stock exchanges, such as a proposal by
University of Chicago economists that they process orders in batches
rather than continuously, to ensure that price trumps technology in
deciding who obtains a trade.
Schneiderman has been conducting a sweeping investigation of early
access to data. Last month, Berkshire Hathaway's Business Wire said it
would no longer sell potentially market-moving press releases directly
to high frequency-trading companies after months of discussion with his
office....
3/19/2014
MH 370 – All the false theories
An article in the internet reported on several of theories that have
been circulating in the media. I have listed them down and discredit
most of them as spurious and not sensible.
1. SOURCE: Chris Goodfellow, who describes himself as an experienced pilot.
THE THEORY: Goodfellow has posted on Google Plus that he believed the pilot on MH370 may have been heading to the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi to land after the transponders were knocked out by a fire on board.
"The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours,'' Goodfellow wrote.
My comment: There is no urgency to make an emergency landing just because the transponder is not working unless there is a big fire. If that is the case, the pilot would have all the time in the world to make his emergency calls, switch on the emergency squawks, and the passengers too would be able to make some calls out. This is obviously false.
2. SOURCE: Desmond Ross, an Australian commercial pilot and aviation security expert.
THE THEORY: Captain Ross offers a similar theory to Goodfellow's. He said the aircraft might have depressurised for some reason, possibly due to an explosion causing a hole in the fuselage.
"The pilots quickly recognise the need to descend,'' said Captain Ross, who conducted a security review of Kuala Lumpur's international airport in 2005.
My comment: False. Same as above.
3. SOURCE: Keith Ledgerwood, who described himself as a hobby pilot and aviation enthusiast from the US.
THE THEORY: This theory was based on the premise that someone hijacked the plane.
Ledgerwood said MH370 could have switched off its radar, then "shadowed" another plane - Singapore Airlines flight number 68 en route from Singapore to Barcelona - before landing north of India or Afghanistan.
"It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in the shadow of SIA68 through India and Afghanistan airspace," wrote Ledgerwood on Tumblr.
My comment: Sound logical and possible. But the part when the pilot, supposedly trying so hard to avoid detection but flew into radar zones to be seen by everyone makes this theory a suspect. On the one hand the pilot wanted to hide but then exposed himself naked for all to see.
4. SOURCE: Described in The Independent newspaper.
THE THEORY: The plane may have been hijacked and flown to a Taliban base.
The Independent has reported that full diplomatic permissions were being sought in order to rule out the theory that the plane could have flown under the radar to areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that were not under government control.
My comment: No aircraft can fly through India and Pakistan without being picked up on radars.
5. SOURCE: Investigators
THE THEORY: Authorities were investigating whether pilot or passenger suicide could explain the plane's disappearance.
There was a historical precedent for this.
6. SOURCE: An email to journalists claiming to be from the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade.
THE THEORY: A shadowy group called the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in an email to journalists in China.
The encrypted email read: ''You kill one of our clan, we will kill 100 of you as pay back.''
My comment: Too little to work on. Probably a hoax. If it is real, there would be followup comments and claims of victory or success.
7. SOURCE: Malaysian police were said to be investigating this theory.
THE THEORY: An explosive may have been hidden in the plane's huge cargo of exotic fruit.
Malaysian officials have said that the only cargo on MH370 was a load of mangosteens, a fruit popular in south-east Asia.
Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said that "three to four tonnes" of mangosteens were on the aircraft
My comment: Possible to have explosives smuggled into the cargo haul. But where is the explosion? No signs of any so far. No wreckages, no debris, no black box signals.
8. My Theory. Aircraft was hijacked by a professional team of experts and flown to some uninhabited or sparsely inhabited islands like those in the southern Philppines. Gan Island is also a possibility as it has an airstrip and not heavily populated. A gag order could be imposed on the islanders not to tell the world. In the case of the Philippines, the pilot would have to ditch the aircraft in the coastal seas. So far the black boxes have been silent. And so were the passengers.
On the other hand, the whole thing could be a very simple and baffling incident like the aircraft landed somewhere in a Malaysian state. But of course everyone on board is either dead or over powered and cannot make contact with the world.
1. SOURCE: Chris Goodfellow, who describes himself as an experienced pilot.
THE THEORY: Goodfellow has posted on Google Plus that he believed the pilot on MH370 may have been heading to the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi to land after the transponders were knocked out by a fire on board.
"The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours,'' Goodfellow wrote.
My comment: There is no urgency to make an emergency landing just because the transponder is not working unless there is a big fire. If that is the case, the pilot would have all the time in the world to make his emergency calls, switch on the emergency squawks, and the passengers too would be able to make some calls out. This is obviously false.
2. SOURCE: Desmond Ross, an Australian commercial pilot and aviation security expert.
THE THEORY: Captain Ross offers a similar theory to Goodfellow's. He said the aircraft might have depressurised for some reason, possibly due to an explosion causing a hole in the fuselage.
"The pilots quickly recognise the need to descend,'' said Captain Ross, who conducted a security review of Kuala Lumpur's international airport in 2005.
My comment: False. Same as above.
3. SOURCE: Keith Ledgerwood, who described himself as a hobby pilot and aviation enthusiast from the US.
THE THEORY: This theory was based on the premise that someone hijacked the plane.
Ledgerwood said MH370 could have switched off its radar, then "shadowed" another plane - Singapore Airlines flight number 68 en route from Singapore to Barcelona - before landing north of India or Afghanistan.
"It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in the shadow of SIA68 through India and Afghanistan airspace," wrote Ledgerwood on Tumblr.
My comment: Sound logical and possible. But the part when the pilot, supposedly trying so hard to avoid detection but flew into radar zones to be seen by everyone makes this theory a suspect. On the one hand the pilot wanted to hide but then exposed himself naked for all to see.
4. SOURCE: Described in The Independent newspaper.
THE THEORY: The plane may have been hijacked and flown to a Taliban base.
The Independent has reported that full diplomatic permissions were being sought in order to rule out the theory that the plane could have flown under the radar to areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that were not under government control.
My comment: No aircraft can fly through India and Pakistan without being picked up on radars.
5. SOURCE: Investigators
THE THEORY: Authorities were investigating whether pilot or passenger suicide could explain the plane's disappearance.
There was a historical precedent for this.
6. SOURCE: An email to journalists claiming to be from the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade.
THE THEORY: A shadowy group called the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in an email to journalists in China.
The encrypted email read: ''You kill one of our clan, we will kill 100 of you as pay back.''
My comment: Too little to work on. Probably a hoax. If it is real, there would be followup comments and claims of victory or success.
7. SOURCE: Malaysian police were said to be investigating this theory.
THE THEORY: An explosive may have been hidden in the plane's huge cargo of exotic fruit.
Malaysian officials have said that the only cargo on MH370 was a load of mangosteens, a fruit popular in south-east Asia.
Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said that "three to four tonnes" of mangosteens were on the aircraft
My comment: Possible to have explosives smuggled into the cargo haul. But where is the explosion? No signs of any so far. No wreckages, no debris, no black box signals.
8. My Theory. Aircraft was hijacked by a professional team of experts and flown to some uninhabited or sparsely inhabited islands like those in the southern Philppines. Gan Island is also a possibility as it has an airstrip and not heavily populated. A gag order could be imposed on the islanders not to tell the world. In the case of the Philippines, the pilot would have to ditch the aircraft in the coastal seas. So far the black boxes have been silent. And so were the passengers.
On the other hand, the whole thing could be a very simple and baffling incident like the aircraft landed somewhere in a Malaysian state. But of course everyone on board is either dead or over powered and cannot make contact with the world.
MH370 – Another ridiculous search into nowhere
Australia is claiming to be searching the ocean to the southwest of
Perth. Now where on earth is that place? It may be trying to cover all
corners on earth but let’s be reasonable, is there any reason why the
pilot would want to fly MH370 to that corner of the Indian Ocean?
Heading towards the Maldives or Mauritius has a logical explanation. There are islands and landing strips to put the aircraft down. Why fly to nowhere to ditch? If the intention of the pilot is to ditch the aircraft, it can ditch anywhere in the South China Sea or nearby in the Indian Ocean. Why ditching in a corner of the earth as good as God knows where?
Maybe the pilot wanted to bury himself and everyone in a watery grave that cannot be found. Logical?
Common Australia, do something logical and fruitful. This is worse than a wild goose chase. It is idiotic and a waste of time and resources. Are they thinking and knowing what they are doing?
Heading towards the Maldives or Mauritius has a logical explanation. There are islands and landing strips to put the aircraft down. Why fly to nowhere to ditch? If the intention of the pilot is to ditch the aircraft, it can ditch anywhere in the South China Sea or nearby in the Indian Ocean. Why ditching in a corner of the earth as good as God knows where?
Maybe the pilot wanted to bury himself and everyone in a watery grave that cannot be found. Logical?
Common Australia, do something logical and fruitful. This is worse than a wild goose chase. It is idiotic and a waste of time and resources. Are they thinking and knowing what they are doing?
Little India Riot COI – not life threatening
More evidence from eye witnesses to support the claim that the little
India Riot by very nice foreign workers was not life threatening. In the
latest report, Staff Sergeant Yaacob Kamis remembered that the rioters
told him and his fellow officers to run, ‘You all run, you all run.’
This was when the rioters were about to turn over the ambulance and set
it ablaze. The rioters were so kind, they just want to burn the
ambulance and telling the police officers to run. Should they not run
when they torched the ambulance, it must be their fault as the rioters
were only interested in burning the vehicles and not to kill anyone.
Swear not life threatening.
‘The auxiliary police officer in the ambulance told the committee previously that he had heard the foreign worker say in Tamil: “I want you all to die today.”’ I think this statement was just to frighten the officer and they have no such intent to kill anyone. Remember, they are very nice people and would fall down like little school children when a woman bus attendant gave them a little shove. How could they have such deadly intent? Cannot be!
All those people who think the rioters have intent to kill and the riot was life threatening were all wrong. They only wanted to riot, to throw stones, bottles and whatever they could lay their hands on at the police officers. Should any of the objects hit their head, it was not meant to kill them. Just an accident if they died.
I am so confident that I am right because I am so knowledgeable. I know the psychology of the rioters. I can read their minds. I am omniprescient. Please feel free to disagree with me. I am not God.
‘The auxiliary police officer in the ambulance told the committee previously that he had heard the foreign worker say in Tamil: “I want you all to die today.”’ I think this statement was just to frighten the officer and they have no such intent to kill anyone. Remember, they are very nice people and would fall down like little school children when a woman bus attendant gave them a little shove. How could they have such deadly intent? Cannot be!
All those people who think the rioters have intent to kill and the riot was life threatening were all wrong. They only wanted to riot, to throw stones, bottles and whatever they could lay their hands on at the police officers. Should any of the objects hit their head, it was not meant to kill them. Just an accident if they died.
I am so confident that I am right because I am so knowledgeable. I know the psychology of the rioters. I can read their minds. I am omniprescient. Please feel free to disagree with me. I am not God.
Recipe to take over a small country
The Russians have done it in Crimea. Send in the troops and hold a
referendum and you can have a country in your hand. But this recipe
requires military might and a majority of the population consisting of
people from your country or similar to your country. And one must be
prepared to fight with the Americans and the European powers.
There is a simpler and more peaceful way of taking over a country without resorting to arms and with the leaders happily doing your bidding, and the people ignorant of what is happening to their country. Take for example a small island country like Mauritius or the Maldives, small islands with small populations and an innocent but eager govt to want to bring economic growth to their people. The leaders will think that they are progressive and doing everything for the good of the people. Just feed on their ambition and egos and they will behave like deaf frogs.
Step One, encourage their leaders to go all out for economic growth. Help them to sell the idea to their people. If it doesn’t work, use a bit of threat or reverse psychology on the people. You want growth or you don’t want growth. This type of statement sure works on their kiasu people. Once the people and leaders are hooked on this growth drug, everything will fall into place.
Step Two, send in the money. Offer them economic aid in terms of foreign investments to create jobs for the people. This is a formula they cannot refuse. Send in our talents to assist them. And convince them that they did not have enough talents.
Step Three, sign a free trade agreement with them to allow our talents and non talents freedom to migrate and work there. The first batch will be our companies and industries setting shops there. And don’t forget to set up our own schools too. And give the reason that the local talents are not suitable then start to export our people to fill up these companies as foreign talents. If needed to, just employ a few local clerical staff as show of providing jobs for their locals.
Step Four, cultivate the ‘gong gong’ leadership to use our talents in their private and public sectors. Better still, make sure our talents are employed in their stats boards and ministries. Once these people are in place, start to recruit our people to occupy key positions in these institutions and eventually filling them with our citizens. Once our citizens are in control, these institutions, including ministries will be as good as ours.
Step Five, advise the local govt to offer citizenships to our people. If no citizenship, PRs also can. The main goal is to fill the country with our citizens to be their new citizens or PRs. Of course this may lead to some problems with their citizens. Teach them how to disguise our presence by classifying PRs as locals and the daft locals would not have any clue what is going on to their country. For those who have become citizens, pretend to be good citizens and start to buy up their properties, estate by estate. With so much money at our disposal, we can eventually buy up the whole island or at least their prime estates.
Step Six, let time to take care of the rest. With our citizens controlling their industries and ministries, and continuing to employ our citizens, it is a matter of time when we will be the real majority there. And without knowing anything, without doing anything, that island will be ours in half a generation.
Step Seven, our citizens that have become their citizens can start to participate in local politics as rightful citizens. Join or form political parties to contest to be the elected govt. Oh, there is something I missed. Educate the locals there to believe in meritocracy so that our more meritocratic talents can rise to top positions without protest from their people. Because of our high education standard, we don’t need to use fake certificates and CVs. And if possible, convince their locals that they are daft and they need foreign talents like ours to help them and create jobs for them.
Not only will their ‘gong gong’ govt be helping us to take over their country, they will be very grateful that we are sharing with them our growth formula and our talents. They will have all the economic growth they desired. And make sure their local elites also benefited from our presence and investments. Make them very rich in the process so that they will support everything we do. For their average citizens, they may lose out, but never mind, they are too daft and inconsequential to do anything. There may be a few small protests, but no matter. Once they become an absolute minority, there is nothing they can do to overturn our takeover.
And in conclusion, we could own a few islands like the Mauritius and the Maldives to expand our territories and influence.
Not a bad recipe right? We have a growing population and we need to expand. We cannot do that to our big neighbours, but to smaller countries with goondu leaders, there are great opportunities to make such friendly and benign takeovers a success.
Kopi Level - Yellow
There is a simpler and more peaceful way of taking over a country without resorting to arms and with the leaders happily doing your bidding, and the people ignorant of what is happening to their country. Take for example a small island country like Mauritius or the Maldives, small islands with small populations and an innocent but eager govt to want to bring economic growth to their people. The leaders will think that they are progressive and doing everything for the good of the people. Just feed on their ambition and egos and they will behave like deaf frogs.
Step One, encourage their leaders to go all out for economic growth. Help them to sell the idea to their people. If it doesn’t work, use a bit of threat or reverse psychology on the people. You want growth or you don’t want growth. This type of statement sure works on their kiasu people. Once the people and leaders are hooked on this growth drug, everything will fall into place.
Step Two, send in the money. Offer them economic aid in terms of foreign investments to create jobs for the people. This is a formula they cannot refuse. Send in our talents to assist them. And convince them that they did not have enough talents.
Step Three, sign a free trade agreement with them to allow our talents and non talents freedom to migrate and work there. The first batch will be our companies and industries setting shops there. And don’t forget to set up our own schools too. And give the reason that the local talents are not suitable then start to export our people to fill up these companies as foreign talents. If needed to, just employ a few local clerical staff as show of providing jobs for their locals.
Step Four, cultivate the ‘gong gong’ leadership to use our talents in their private and public sectors. Better still, make sure our talents are employed in their stats boards and ministries. Once these people are in place, start to recruit our people to occupy key positions in these institutions and eventually filling them with our citizens. Once our citizens are in control, these institutions, including ministries will be as good as ours.
Step Five, advise the local govt to offer citizenships to our people. If no citizenship, PRs also can. The main goal is to fill the country with our citizens to be their new citizens or PRs. Of course this may lead to some problems with their citizens. Teach them how to disguise our presence by classifying PRs as locals and the daft locals would not have any clue what is going on to their country. For those who have become citizens, pretend to be good citizens and start to buy up their properties, estate by estate. With so much money at our disposal, we can eventually buy up the whole island or at least their prime estates.
Step Six, let time to take care of the rest. With our citizens controlling their industries and ministries, and continuing to employ our citizens, it is a matter of time when we will be the real majority there. And without knowing anything, without doing anything, that island will be ours in half a generation.
Step Seven, our citizens that have become their citizens can start to participate in local politics as rightful citizens. Join or form political parties to contest to be the elected govt. Oh, there is something I missed. Educate the locals there to believe in meritocracy so that our more meritocratic talents can rise to top positions without protest from their people. Because of our high education standard, we don’t need to use fake certificates and CVs. And if possible, convince their locals that they are daft and they need foreign talents like ours to help them and create jobs for them.
Not only will their ‘gong gong’ govt be helping us to take over their country, they will be very grateful that we are sharing with them our growth formula and our talents. They will have all the economic growth they desired. And make sure their local elites also benefited from our presence and investments. Make them very rich in the process so that they will support everything we do. For their average citizens, they may lose out, but never mind, they are too daft and inconsequential to do anything. There may be a few small protests, but no matter. Once they become an absolute minority, there is nothing they can do to overturn our takeover.
And in conclusion, we could own a few islands like the Mauritius and the Maldives to expand our territories and influence.
Not a bad recipe right? We have a growing population and we need to expand. We cannot do that to our big neighbours, but to smaller countries with goondu leaders, there are great opportunities to make such friendly and benign takeovers a success.
Kopi Level - Yellow
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