Comments on: A Public Record Exclusive – An Excerpt From ‘The Audacity of Greed’ http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/4913/jonathon-tasini-interview-audacity-greed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jonathon-tasini-interview-audacity-greed Intrepid New Journalism Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:20:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kathy Smith http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/4913/jonathon-tasini-interview-audacity-greed/comment-page-1/#comment-11957 Kathy Smith Fri, 19 Nov 2010 02:58:23 +0000 http://pubrecord.org/?p=4913#comment-11957 And so many people think the unions killed our economy and sent jobs oversees. Instead it was a calculated decision so the CEOs can have so much ...when the rest of us just want good benefits, good pay, put our kids through college, go on a 1 week vacation and some money to retire on!!! Yes, the audacity of GREED!! Sickening!! And so many people think the unions killed our economy and sent jobs oversees. Instead it was a calculated decision so the CEOs can have so much …when the rest of us just want good benefits, good pay, put our kids through college, go on a 1 week vacation and some money to retire on!!!

Yes, the audacity of GREED!! Sickening!!

]]> By: Fossil http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/4913/jonathon-tasini-interview-audacity-greed/comment-page-1/#comment-601 Fossil Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:18:23 +0000 http://pubrecord.org/?p=4913#comment-601 I speak to a very narrow issue, namely, Tasini's indiscriminate lumping of James Simons with a pack of corporate crooks. One might well think that Simon's income should not be allowed in any just society, merely because of its size. But, absent such a contention, there is little to complain about with respect to Simons. Most of his earnings come from the Medallion Fund of his firm, Renaissance Technologies. Most of the money in Medallion is Simons's own--it has been closed to outside investors for years, and only Simons, his family, and senior employees of Renaissance may participate. Thus the money Simons makes comes of putting his own wealth at direct risk. Moreover, he does not operate by manipulating markets, playing the corporate raider, or fiddling with dodgy securities. He simply has succeeded in analyzing, in a rigorous (that is to say, mathematical) way, the glitches and imperfections of world-wide markets and of exploiting them by ultrafast trades. His method, in a nutshell, is to isolate the transient "signals" of a market from its "noise", and to exploit them during a microseconds-long window of opportunity. It would be hard to trace any specific social evil to this practice. Moreover, a large proportion of the money Simons makes is put to philanthropic use in supporting science, science education, and biomedical research. This is not opulence for its own sake. When it comes to philanthropy, something similar may be said about Soros. In addition to purely charitable causes, much of Soros's spending is on behalf of political causes, all of them on the left, which is why Republicans are so eager to denounce the man in vituperative terms. I speak to a very narrow issue, namely, Tasini’s indiscriminate lumping of James Simons with a pack of corporate crooks. One might well think that Simon’s income should not be allowed in any just society, merely because of its size. But, absent such a contention, there is little to complain about with respect to Simons. Most of his earnings come from the Medallion Fund of his firm, Renaissance Technologies. Most of the money in Medallion is Simons’s own–it has been closed to outside investors for years, and only Simons, his family, and senior employees of Renaissance may participate. Thus the money Simons makes comes of putting his own wealth at direct risk.

Moreover, he does not operate by manipulating markets, playing the corporate raider, or fiddling with dodgy securities. He simply has succeeded in analyzing, in a rigorous (that is to say, mathematical) way, the glitches and imperfections of world-wide markets and of exploiting them by ultrafast trades. His method, in a nutshell, is to isolate the transient “signals” of a market from its “noise”, and to exploit them during a microseconds-long window of opportunity. It would be hard to trace any specific social evil to this practice. Moreover, a large proportion of the money Simons makes is put to philanthropic use in supporting science, science education, and biomedical research. This is not opulence for its own sake.

When it comes to philanthropy, something similar may be said about Soros. In addition to purely charitable causes, much of Soros’s spending is on behalf of political causes, all of them on the left, which is why Republicans are so eager to denounce the man in vituperative terms.

]]> By: RJ http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/4913/jonathon-tasini-interview-audacity-greed/comment-page-1/#comment-595 RJ Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:47:32 +0000 http://pubrecord.org/?p=4913#comment-595 And nothing has been done to correct the latest sscams and what was done after WCOM/Enron, Sarbannes-Oxley, has turned out to be a failure. Both political parties suck and are toatlly corrupt because they have been, and continue to be paid, off by the corporate world order. And nothing has been done to correct the latest sscams and what was done after WCOM/Enron, Sarbannes-Oxley, has turned out to be a failure.

Both political parties suck and are toatlly corrupt because they have been, and continue to be paid, off by the corporate world order.

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