China Wrecks Copenhagen Deal
According to this first hand account, China wrecked the climate change negotiations at the Copenhagen conference. China’s economic growth requires coal. They are understandably reluctant to change.
Fine. The correct response is to place a 100% tariff on Chinese imports.
China needs us more than we need them. We can make our own stuff. Whereas China has no one else to buy all their stuff.
China owns ~$800b of our debt. As we learned from Donald Trump, borrow enough and you own the bank. Let the dollar crash. China’s advantage will disappear. A lower dollar leads to more American exports.
China will cry uncle when the economic pain causes more social unrest than they can manage. Perhaps 400m unemployed, angry Chinese citizens will suffice.<p>
Then we say: Oops, big misunderstanding. Tell you what. You agree to meet these new improved aggressive emission reduction targets, we’ll drop the tariffs. Everyone will be happy again. Deal?
Cross posted to WashBlog here.
USPS To Lose 98,000 Jobs
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the US Postal Service will lose 13% of its workforce between 2008-2018. That’s 98,000 jobs.
Another good reason to move to all mail balloting for our elections.
Stopping the NYSE Arms Race with Discrete Auctions
Way back in August, I threatened to propose an alternative stock brokering system for the New York Stock Exchange (et al).
Background
The service an exchange provides to the market is liquidity. More than matching buyers and sellers, more than clearing transactions, an exchange’s “specialists” have their own cache of stocks so that there’s always some available for potential buyers.
Current exchanges operate as continuous double auctions. Meaning buy and sell orders are processed as they come in, as fast as possible.
The Problem
Because transactions are continuous, in near real-time, there’s huge incentive to have the fastest, closest computers submitting buy and sell orders. It’s an information technology “arms race”. The result is unfair advantage for the traders that invest more in their communications infrastructure.
The Solution
Replace the continuous system with repeating discrete double auctions. Create a series of auctions for each listed stock.
Auctions could last 5 seconds or 1 hour, adapting the frequency (and duration) of the auctions in response to trading volume.
By predetermining the auction deadline, no trader could have a communications infrastructure advantage (e.g. bigger, faster, closer pipes).
Commentary
Exchanges have opening and closing auction. The mismatch between these auctions and the continuous trading causes heartache. Having repeating discrete double auctions would simplify matters.
Transaction processing for auctions would be more simple and robust, compared to continuous trading.
Setting a minimum auction duration, e.g. no shorter than 5 seconds, might prevent or forestall a computing arms race.
The proposal of repeating discrete double auctions is only meant to address the uneven playing field resulting from the communications and computing arms race. I don’t know if it helps or hurts other identified issues, such as high volume trading, automatic trading algorithms (heuristics), specialists “leading” the market, etc.
This is just a blue-sky idea. I know almost nothing about stocks, finance, trading, etc. I started to read about it. Alas, it’s really not my thing, so I stopped. But I wanted to post this idea, just in case it’s original or helpful.
I couldn’t come up with a better phrase. “Recurring auctions” was on the list.
MMORPGs and other event based simulations have a virtual clock. So would an auction system, I imagine. It’d please me tremendously if game technology found its way into the world of finance.
Voter Registration Modernization
During my campaign for Secretary of State, I proposed Automatic Voter Registration for Washington State.
Everyone would be registered to vote and your registration would follow you as you move. All done automatically.
Automatic registration is cheaper, more accurate, and more fair than our current opt-in system. It’d also simplify election administration by eliminating the need for provisional ballots.
I’m absolutely thrilled to note this issue is gaining support. A small sampling…
Each of these efforts is being done independently. People have acknowledged the problem, determined the correct solution, and are starting to organize.
Automatic voter registration is an idea who’s time has come.
