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There are no 'do-gooders' in the Wall Street foxholes

Paul Krugman in the NY Times writes that high frequency trading serves no social purpose other than to offer one person (or one bank) a profit.

"Just to be clear: financial speculation can serve a useful purpose. It's good, for example, that futures markets provide an incentive to stockpile heating oil before the weather gets cold and stockpile gasoline ahead of the summer driving season.

But speculation based on information not available to the public at large is a very different matter. As the U.C.L.A. economist Jack Hirshleifer showed back in 1971, such speculation often combines "private profitability" with "social uselessness." "

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