This question has been beaten to death every time a HFT related article is posted. But people still ask, so I will try to answer. High Frequency Traders (HFTs) are not investors, they are market makers. They find a willing buyer and a willing seller, arrange the transaction, and execute the trade. They make a profit on the spread between the buy price and the sell price. The problem is that once they locate the buyer and seller, they need to buy the stock from the seller first, then turn around and sell it to the buyer, but the buyer may have cancelled they transaction, or they may have already bought the stock from someone else, in which case the HFT is stuck with the stock and may have to sell it to someone else at a loss. If transactions are granulated to one second intervals, instead of say, millisecond intervals, then the risk of this happening is a thousand times higher , and the HFTs will insist on higher spreads, resulting in lower liquidity and higher transaction costs for both buyer and seller.

Since the introduction of high frequency trading, transaction costs have fallen considerably, saving plenty of people a lot of money. The only losers are the old market makers that used to have lucrative sweetheart deals with the exchanges. Many of those old market makers are now bankrupt. Good riddance.

... and transactions costs go up for everyone. Do you understand that the buy-sell spread has fallen dramatically since HFT became feasible?

This is a problem that is just crying out for a simple free market solution: Just charge slightly less for middle seats, and slightly more for aisle/window seats. Why don't the airlines do this?

I doubt if most people will notice. When making flying decisions, most passengers care about three things:
1. cost of the tickets
2. fares
3. ticket prices
Discount airlines that have cut amenities to reduce costs, have thrived.
Speaking for myself, I have a family to support, and renting a comfortable seat for a few hours is not a priority.
If a thinner seat allows the airline to cut $20 off the price, that is fine with me.

Most big companies do this. Why not? It is completely legal. If America wants more tax from companies that employ people in America, they should just raise payroll taxes. That would have the same effect.

Because that would quickly turn into a race to the bottom. If Ireland charged 5%, then Bermuda would charge 4%, so Ireland would lower theirs to 3% .... The only Nash Equilibrium is zero.

They get corporate registration fees, and jobs for a few lawyers and administrators. That is better than nothing.

Energy Density can refer to either energy/volume or energy/mass. For moving vehicles, the latter is often the more important consideration.

Good luck with that. Take a look at the periodic table. The only elements lighter than lithium are helium and hydrogen. Helium is nonreactive, and hydrogen is a gas with storage problems that have never been resolved, despite decades of effort. Computer nerds are used to Moore's Law, but exponential improvement doesn't often happen with other technologies.

"Research" and "pay the employees" are not different things. In fact, most money budgeted to research is used to pay employees that are researchers.

Meanwhile, between 1995 and 2012, America spent $84.4 billion on corn subsidies.

Which makes it just like garbage. One of the most useful finds for an archeologist is an ancient garbage dump. Looking at what people toss out can reveal far more about how they actually lived than their writings or art.

Whenever a politician says "We need to have a conversation" it means that they want to avoid taking a position on the issue until they know which way the wind is blowing. It is easier to bend when you have no spine.

Wrong question. The right question is whether they would be more or less likely to shoot the wrong person than a human soldier would. Many atrocities, such as My Lai and No Gun Ri were committed by soldiers angry over the deaths or maiming of comrades and fearful for their own safety. Since robots don't have emotions, they would not have committed those massacres.

With a linear building of length L, the max distance between two offices is L. For a circular building, it is L/2.

Most people don't like working in offices that receive no natural light.

This is a confirmation of the first of Clarke's Three Laws. They are:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.