90% Fake

The stock market is 90% computers trading with each other. So says this guest on Capital Account. That means that most of the part of the "free" market that is represented by stock trading is artificial.

Normally I try to avoid talking too much about one subject--especially economics as the number of people reading the blog drops off noticeably. But this interview and yesterday's interview fit hand in glove. We do not have anything close to a free market. The stock market is a combination of rigging (yesterday's interview), and robots trading as if they were real people (today's interview).

When the system has a crisis, and it will, do not think that this is a crisis of capitalism. It is a crisis of our mixed system that can best be described as a form of fascism.

Charles Smith has blogged on this issue.