CBC on today’s rigged financial system

After a few years now of embarrassing banter on the Lang and O’Leary Exchange, it is nice to see Amanda Lang doing good work in this segment.

“Every day, trillions of dollars are exchanged by buyers and sellers on trading floors across the world. The places where that happens are colloquially known by the faceless moniker of “the markets” but every time somebody buys a barrel of oil, a shipment of potash, a Royal Bank share or a Japanese yen, there’s a real person behind that transaction.

Historically, the system works because people have confidence in the rules and believe they are treated the same as anybody else.

But it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the stories of powerful people cheating the system for their own gain.”

Here is a direct video link.

The new Volcker Rule is a step in the healing process toward some integrity and level playing field in capital markets. Next we need to curtail rampant high frequency gaming through financial transaction taxes and wider bid/ask spreads that will largely remove the opportunity to profit from millisecond buy and cancel orders that serve no legitimate function but to enrich a few at the expense of everyone else. As well as reinstate the Glass Steagall division between tax-payer backed banking and all other investment banking activities which must be pushed back into separate enterprises that place the risks of loss squarely on the partners and operators and far away from government coffers. Yes we can. And the world will be a much stronger, more accountable place to live.

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