"Finally: of all people, computer programmers in this country are hardly the tragically underpaid class which can't AFFORD to buy toys."

Unemployed computer programmers are.

"Unless your products have 100% profit, you will always lose money by giving someone money to buy your product."

If that were true you wouldn't see the vending machines that fill break rooms that used to have free refreshments for workers.

"his car prices were set at a rate that his target audience could afford. They were not linked in any way."

Ford's target market was the typical american worker, it was no coincidence. You have to pay your workers regardless, if you can get them to turn around and spend that pay back into your pockets suddenly your labor costs just went down by your profit margin. See Walmart. Walmart's pricing is also targeted at what it's staff can afford.

"Either the foreigners come to the jobs or the jobs go to the foreigners. If Google can't bring the talent they want to the USA then it's very easy for them to open offices overseas. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the current H1-B program but it's ridiculously naive to imagine that there are a fixed number of jobs in the USA and all that matters is how many are stolen by foreigners."

That is also naive. The US is still the largest economy in the world, the companies are here because the money is here. Google, etc could already open offices overseas and not have to deal with any "tech shortage" or H1-B hassles. But google's profits come from the US and Google needs US infrastructure. If Indian or Chinese infrastructure were up to the task they'd still be screwed because of the latency induced by literally sending data back and forth to the other side of the world.

If you were an American still in Tech you wouldn't be saying this. Walking up and down the halls you find nothing but foreign workers.

What about the equally smart people who are already here and would like to get off food stamps?

But would they pay competitive US market rates?

Oh the BS stat that stops counting when unemployment funds run out. Come out when your "facts" actually include everyone who is unemployed and not just those in the short period of time you can collect unemployment.

"you have not been involved in any significant tech hiring in the last few years"

That's because good tech talent is a rare commodity and the only way to find out if you've found it is to hire people and test them. It isn't like you burn through the entire talent pool looking. There are plenty here in the US without going overseas, overseas you don't find more talented people, it's the same grind, you hire and try them out.

And if you are looking for perfect drop in replacements who don't need a year or so to settle in and learn the in's and out's of your particular environment move along. You are a serious part of the problem.

The biggest secret to having good people isn't hiring H1B's it's working to retain the people you have.

That's because of greed on the part of universities.

If you are going to do that you need to ban chart trading and day trading as well and get back to people investing based on actual fundamentals. Good luck with that.

In the meantime the stock market is nothing but a game that has little to no relation to the success or viability of the businesses and in that world the fast trading algorithms serve to provide liquidity.

"Ever hear of a mutual fund, 401k, 403b, IRA, etc"

Ever hear of a bond, a commodity, a long term investor... When an auto-trade algorithm hits an action point... it has no impact on any of them. This only potentially impacts high risk investors and by definition they've opt'd in to the risk and have the burn coming.

Anyone else either isn't speculating by gambling in the stock market or is at least trading on longer scales of time that erase momentary blips in a stock price like this.

If you aren't running a fast trading scam you aren't being hurt by this.

It's not the like the normal up and down swings are based on anything beyond the emotional state of traders anyway.

As for users of fast trading algorithms getting burned... yay?

"Oddly no. One reason so few people die to terrorist incidents is that there's a lot of time and effort expended on preventing and mitigating against them."

There is absolutely no evidence to support that claim. As anti-terrorism efforts have heightened since 9/11 there has been an increase in terrorism from pre-9/11 not a reduction.

"Security vs. Liberty, It is always a tradeoff."

It's a trade I for one don't care to make. But this isn't just spying, this is creating fake attacks against our nation to make people THINK they are unsafe and trade away their liberty to the very groups that present the only real threat to it!

It is probably best to stop referring to the style guides as rules but rather as guidelines. One can reference guidelines and in some cases even require them but for the most part a guideline is not a requirement but a best practice which may have exceptions.