So it sounds like the transaction fee might need to be closer to 10cents per share.
HFT exists because the current (transaction fee + transaction cost) is too low. Just like with spam, trying to
artificially increasing the transaction cost for an electronic transaction is bound to fail but unlike spam
increasing the transaction fee is easy to implement.
I don't think you want to eliminate all arbitrage as some can be good for the market. You just want to
eliminate the fractional cent arbitrage that doesn't benefit the market but taxes it (both physically and financially)
and a small fee would be a perfect solution to this.

This might work or just have the delay a random amount between 1 and 5 seconds but I
think the better solution would be to just increase the transaction cost as presumably this
is putting a fair amount of load on the system as well.
A simple transaction cost of maybe 1cent per share wouldn't affect a normal buyer at all,
would bring in money to the exchange but would put a huge damper on buying and selling
thousands of shares per second.
High Frequency Trading is kindof like email spam. The only do it because it is profitable.
A transaction cost should make it unprofitable unless they are scalping. If they are
scalping then the best solution is to maybe both increase the transaction cost and
add a random delay of 1-5 seconds. The increased transaction cost could also help
offset any loss that might come from the reduced volume of trading as presumably they
already do get a little something per transaction.

I agree with this in principal but what about software that is still patented by themself or a 3rd party?
Also, what about cloud services? Do you release the source of your cloud software too?
Although I think the "right" thing to do is to release the source of a product once it is deemed "dead", I see
problems with actually requiring this to be done.

yeah, I was off by an order of magnitude but it still doesn't dispute my point
that we have plenty of money. We spend 10.7 trillion shopping each year.
We spend 10 times NASA's budget on beer and 5 times NASA's budget on our pets.
When we spend 2 billion per year on tattoes and almost a billion on girl scout cookies alone
you know there is plenty of money. It's just a matter on what is important to us.

source: http://mentalfloss.com/article...

They are only allowed to let 1000 cars per hour leave. This seems like a simple solution. The license plate is about as good as any
but a drivers license, etc.. might also work. If there are 26k cars and only 1000 cars can leave an hour then letting random letter X
go the first hour, etc... seems like a good solution. If there are 13k cars, then letting 2 letters go per hour would work, etc...
Basically the same as airlines do. with group 1, group 2, etc...
For people who need to catch a flight, etc... and didn't get a good slot you could also allow line jumping for a fee.

This is the exact reason that we need as many channels controlled by as many different people as possible.
I see the USA adding a second channel to Cuba as a good thing even if they have other motives.
I would likewise see it as a good thing if Cuba, China, etc, added another communicaton channel in the USA.
When I want to know what's really happening I typically try to cross check the US media with the BBC or
countries hostile to the US to see the rest of the story.

Suicide bombers and suicide pilots are fairly common in history. They knowingly and willingly went to certain death to advance their religion and/or country.
There are also lots of people who have went to certain death for political or social reasons.
I can't think of any purely scientific suicides either but going to mars is not necessarily a purely scientific venture either.
It also could be considered a moral or ethical obligation to protect humanity from extinction and/or to advance knowledge.

The difference is that the money spent on movies, music, and sports entertainment in the US could
fund NASA 1000 times over and then some.

We have plenty of money and resource to get off this rock if we really wanted to.

I don't think we should be sending "suicide missions" to mars.
I think the first step is to send (or presend) enough equipment to offer them a reasonable chance of surviving.
We can put those same life insurance underwriters to good use.
We would need to define what a "reasonable chance" would be but something like
"an 80% chance of living for 5 years" or "a 60% chance of living for 10 years"
That's probably well outside of NASA's safety range but probably still lower than
certain frontline military operations which we unfortunately do all the time.

Gay marriage is not a human rights issue. It's a civil rights issue. A human rights issue would be if they were going to jail.
They are just not being allowed to collect the extra money government gives married people.

Furthermore, unlike a human right, it's an arbitrary right with more than one correct solution.

My preferred solution would be to treat all people the same regardless of marriage status or living arrangement.
It seems silly to treat married couples, unmarried couples living together, married couples not living together,
siblings living together, someone taking care of an elderly relative, etc... each differently.
It should be none of the government's business.
They shouldn't even ask about your marital status or your living arrangements.
The only question they should possibly ask might be number of dependents.

If you stopped supporting every company you disagreed with you would probably starve to death and not be able to drive a car.
The best you can do is try to support the ones that are the "least evil" and hope that the worst offenders slowly go away.
Personally I think stuff like child labor and all the atrocities done for oil are far worse than whether or not you support gay marriage.

The data I quoted was from 2012, so it's not what I would call "old" data. It's only 2 years old.
2011 is when it crossed over and more people started supporting gay marriage than opposing it.
So we're talking about an issue that less than 4 years ago a "clear majority" opposed.
Here is a graph: http://features.pewforum.org/s...
Unfortunately it doesn't differentiate between strongly and weakly.
It does however show how quickly opinions can change and how in flux this issue is.
It is far from a settled issue and could easily go back the other direction.
The media and corporate america have prematurely (in my opinion) decided which direction
this debate is suppose to go and is trying to make it unacceptable for anyone to have an
opposing view. I'm personally on the fence about the issue and can see both sides of the
argument but I don't like how corporate america is strong arming everyone to chose their side.
If I had my way instead of recognizing same-sex marriages I would rather the government
exit completely out of the marriage business altogether and no longer ask it on tax forms, etc...
It seems strange to me that someone unmarried and living together is treated differently than
someone who is married and living together or is treated differently than a brother and a sister
who are living together.

So if I'm tired and don't have any energy does that mean I'm depressed?
What's the difference between depressed and just being tired from working too hard or being burnt out?
Basically, if you don't know you're depressed, how do you decide when it's time to be "tested" and are
there even any "tests" that can be done to determine if you are depressed if you aren't displaying classic
symptoms?

I completely agree with your assessment of the situation but I disagree that it's a good thing.
This is the exact reason that we always elect officials that are unwilling to go on record for any opinion
and instead give fake half-answers to any direct questions.
It's because we demand that our politicians cater to everyone and be politically correct all the time.
Wouldn't it be better to know the real person and admit that they can misspeak and/or change their mind
instead of only knowing the lying facade that all politicians have to create.

I would hardly call even 59% a clear majority. Depending on how many they surveyed it's probably still within the margin
of error and based on voting records where measures barely pass or barely fail then I would say it's still very much a debatable
issue which shouldn't get you fired.

Oh, and just for the fun of it I looked up the stats: http://takingnote.blogs.nytime...

So my 20% guess was slightly off. Sorry, It's 22%. I would say that my guess was still pretty accurate if you ask me.