Karl Denninger

Oh Yeah, The Economy Is Improving

"Cold Fusion" is a farce.

There are many who have peddled violations of the laws of thermodynamics (or quantum mechanics) over the years, but they have all - every one - been scams.

That's because those are laws, not suggestions.

Anyone putting forward such a "solution" has instantly defined themself as a kook.

Goldman Dissembling: Dark Pools et al

One other point folks - volume is NOT liquidity.

If I pass the same 100 shares between myself and someone else 1,000 times, there is NOT 100,000 shares of "liquidity", or depth of market, out there. There is in fact the ILLUSION of such liquidity, which can (and does!) dupe other participants into THINKING they can place an order for some significant fraction of that alleged liquidity and get a decent fill.

This is in fact false, as they will discover if they try to execute against it!

Goldman: Is Its Trading Performance Statistically Reasonable?

Wrong - that set of "results" was from their principal trading, not their market-making activity.


On Aug 05 04:42 PM The Dorkster wrote:

> I don't think you understand what "trading" at a company like Goldman
> is. It is not the kind of "upstairs" speculation that you or I do.
> They are constantly making markets, buying at the bid and selling
> at the offer, in a wide variety of markets. When spreads are high,
> like now, this is a license to print money. In normal times GS would
> have to compete with a host of other entities. Sadly, most of them
> are gone. Some are out of business; most have eliminated or downgraded
> their desks.

Goldman Code Theft Bombshell

If/when Sergio goes to trial it will be quite interesting.

Realize that this code was apparently "in the wild" after being stolen for about a month before anyone was told about it.

One wonders - perhaps someone (besides Goldman) **was using it**?

You would think not, but.....

BTW, my background is in network design and programming, including large-scale, real-time transasction systems. Give me or any other competent programmer that source and I could tell you rather quickly if siphoning off a message stream like this was the purpose behind it - the system calls involved in putting an interface in promiscuous mode are rather obvious and have no other possible purpose.

Goldman Sachs Backlash Is Picking Up Steam

I don't care if Goldman was short AIG. Hell, I was short AIG for a while.

What I find outrageous is that Goldman was short AIG **AND THEN GOT PAID AT 100 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR** for positions that HAD NOT DEFAULTED through a "passthrough" via AIG from The Taxpayer!

THAT is outrageous.

If you have fire insurance you're entitled to collect on it if you have a fire. You're NOT entitled to collect on it AND THEN steal the value of the policy A SECOND TIME from The Taxpayer!