Interesting comment left by poster "Fred Smart" on Patrick Ruffini's site today, his post "Inside Ron Paul Nation":
http://www.patrickruffini.com/2007/10/15/inside-ron-paul-nation/#comments
"Patrick:
Thanks for the great article!!
The decision by the Ron Paul campaign to publish donor stats “live” is a move that will rock the entire political establishment in ways that we may not completely understand at this point.
I witnessed the same thing happen in the financial services industry - where I worked for 18 yrs - when we created the first electronically-derived (computer-generated) price-improvement algorithm in the world right here in Chicago on the Chicago Stock Exchange back in the early 1990’s. In effect, by letting computers take control over the process of improving the pricing of a securities trade we literally opened pandora’s box. Within 1-3 years all of our competitors - in order to stay in business - were compelled to come up with their own versions of computer-generated price improvement algorithms. With so many competing algorithms and claims by market makers at various exchanges and upstairs trading rooms on NASDAQ the obvious question became “how can we measure the quality of the claims being make by all the various providers of liquidity?”
Continuing with leadership standard once again, a group of us here in Chicago reached out to professors of math and statistics from around the country and got commitments from 10 of the top 12 firms in the industry to have the actual data of their trades examined. Within a year two firms I worked with were providing monthly reports and then overnight-daily reports to a broad contingent of firms throughout the industry. We showed our work to the SEC before we went “live” and got their endorsement to the chagrin of some of the “powers that be” at the NYSE. In the end it was amazing to watch how we achieved - within just 1-2 years - this amazing movement toward transparency and openness. All I can say is that it was light turning a light on in a cave: once the light was turned on overhead there was no more power in waving-claiming-shaming our own separate torches. We all had to put up or shut up. We ended up actually exiting the cave and joined forces in partnership with our customers - the “us vs. them” paradigm had collapsed. We had to be partners with our customers - and let them have access to our books and records - or we had to leave the industry.
The only exchange - and trading platform - that refused to take part in this transformation toward transparency and openness was the New York Stock Exchange. Little did we know that - as we later understood a few years later with the scandal of it’s Chairman making $150 million per year - they had a lot of fraud and corruption they were still trying to keep a lid on - especially with the large institutional trades.
What was the result of this movement toward openness and transparency? Please remember that by the end of the 1990s spreads in stocks were being quoted in decimals, volumes soared and the cost of trading collapsed. This is how powerful the movement toward openness and transparency can be. I will never forget the 2-3 weeks that one of the most powerful firms on Wall Street called me into their boardroom to meet their partners to inform me that they were going to move ALL of their electronic trading business to Chicago. During this time they actually broke the back of the NYSE specialist commission monopoly. The cost of doing business on the NYSE collapsed and volume soared. I spent years with leading trading execs all over Wall Street preaching the virtues of competition, openness and transparency. Freedom works! Period.
To me, the decision by the Ron Paul campaign to “open up the hood” on their donation machine is akin another “shot heard round the world” for the cause of freedom, liberty, transparency, openness and truth.
Watch how the other campaigns try to ignore this and as they lose face watch how they scramble to get on board to save their hides. It’s going to be a very exciting process to watch. There is no turning back now. And Ron Paul is sitting in the catbird seat right now with virtually NO/ZERO competition. He’s going after the low-lying fruit among lovers of freedom and liberty. This groundswell will continue to the point where the viral power of this openness will attract a virtual hoard new supporters. All the other candidates will be forced to throw in the towel and reveal who their real masters are - ie. corporate interests, not the interests of the common man among We The People.
# October 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am"
(emphasis added by Zydeco)
http://www.patrickruffini.com/2007/10/15/inside-ron-paul-nation/#comments
"Patrick:
Thanks for the great article!!
The decision by the Ron Paul campaign to publish donor stats “live” is a move that will rock the entire political establishment in ways that we may not completely understand at this point.
I witnessed the same thing happen in the financial services industry - where I worked for 18 yrs - when we created the first electronically-derived (computer-generated) price-improvement algorithm in the world right here in Chicago on the Chicago Stock Exchange back in the early 1990’s. In effect, by letting computers take control over the process of improving the pricing of a securities trade we literally opened pandora’s box. Within 1-3 years all of our competitors - in order to stay in business - were compelled to come up with their own versions of computer-generated price improvement algorithms. With so many competing algorithms and claims by market makers at various exchanges and upstairs trading rooms on NASDAQ the obvious question became “how can we measure the quality of the claims being make by all the various providers of liquidity?”
Continuing with leadership standard once again, a group of us here in Chicago reached out to professors of math and statistics from around the country and got commitments from 10 of the top 12 firms in the industry to have the actual data of their trades examined. Within a year two firms I worked with were providing monthly reports and then overnight-daily reports to a broad contingent of firms throughout the industry. We showed our work to the SEC before we went “live” and got their endorsement to the chagrin of some of the “powers that be” at the NYSE. In the end it was amazing to watch how we achieved - within just 1-2 years - this amazing movement toward transparency and openness. All I can say is that it was light turning a light on in a cave: once the light was turned on overhead there was no more power in waving-claiming-shaming our own separate torches. We all had to put up or shut up. We ended up actually exiting the cave and joined forces in partnership with our customers - the “us vs. them” paradigm had collapsed. We had to be partners with our customers - and let them have access to our books and records - or we had to leave the industry.
The only exchange - and trading platform - that refused to take part in this transformation toward transparency and openness was the New York Stock Exchange. Little did we know that - as we later understood a few years later with the scandal of it’s Chairman making $150 million per year - they had a lot of fraud and corruption they were still trying to keep a lid on - especially with the large institutional trades.
What was the result of this movement toward openness and transparency? Please remember that by the end of the 1990s spreads in stocks were being quoted in decimals, volumes soared and the cost of trading collapsed. This is how powerful the movement toward openness and transparency can be. I will never forget the 2-3 weeks that one of the most powerful firms on Wall Street called me into their boardroom to meet their partners to inform me that they were going to move ALL of their electronic trading business to Chicago. During this time they actually broke the back of the NYSE specialist commission monopoly. The cost of doing business on the NYSE collapsed and volume soared. I spent years with leading trading execs all over Wall Street preaching the virtues of competition, openness and transparency. Freedom works! Period.
To me, the decision by the Ron Paul campaign to “open up the hood” on their donation machine is akin another “shot heard round the world” for the cause of freedom, liberty, transparency, openness and truth.
Watch how the other campaigns try to ignore this and as they lose face watch how they scramble to get on board to save their hides. It’s going to be a very exciting process to watch. There is no turning back now. And Ron Paul is sitting in the catbird seat right now with virtually NO/ZERO competition. He’s going after the low-lying fruit among lovers of freedom and liberty. This groundswell will continue to the point where the viral power of this openness will attract a virtual hoard new supporters. All the other candidates will be forced to throw in the towel and reveal who their real masters are - ie. corporate interests, not the interests of the common man among We The People.
# October 16th, 2007 at 9:50 am"
(emphasis added by Zydeco)
