Every New Year's day for the past few years, we have brought you a little gift from Playing for Change of a few minutes to just sit back, listen, and enjoy the good feeling. That gift appears below as Gift No. 1. Gift No. 2 is also a Playing for Change release, brought to our attention last year by a loyal reader. Gift No. 3 is just a favorite song of ours which has been featured on this blog a couple of times. Enjoy!
This year, we can look forward with some hope given that Trump should soon be gone and the vaccines are here. Not that the transition to either blessed event will be easy or without bumps, but I hope it's not jinxing things to say this year has got to be better rid of one monster in the guise of a person and another that is invisible except through a microscope and the ravages of its effects.
America's deployment of Covid testing was from the beginning and remains an abysmal disaster and an embarrassment in a world where almost every other country did better. It appears that the brilliance that brought us the testing is now replicating itself in distribution (or more properly lack thereof) of the Covid vaccines. The federal government ceded to the states the responsibility for testing, a clear mistake given the resources and expertise of the states. In a story told brilliantly in Catch-22, the federal government has now ceded to the states the responsibility for vaccinating, the same clear mistake given the resources and expertise of the states. Israel has already vaccinated 10% of its population and is vaccinating 2% every day, and so it will be done in a matter of weeks. England has enough vaccine for its entire population and is not that far behind. And don't talk to me about Bahrain, which dwarfs everyone. So, they have rational countries and national medical systems, and we get to proclaim just how proud we are of ourselves: Link to Song Oh, and by the way, if you think Biden is going to undo this mess and put us on a proper vaccination course, his promise to delivery 100 million doses in 100 days will, if it succeeds and continues at that rate, will take us well into 2022 before there's what you might call herd immunity.
Putting aside objections to the number of people who have no need for (and likely won't even spend so there is no benefit to the economy) any stimulus check, and what's not going to the unemployed and others in great need, just by way of an fyi, the stimulus check payment status portal, where you can check the status of any payment you might be receiving, is not up yet. When it does come up, which should be anytime now, here is the link to it: Link to Get My Payment Portal
Even the supposedly smart pundits on TV seem to not understand what actually could be at issue when Congress meets on January 6 to validate the presidential election. While they correctly say there is no chance the election results will be overturned, they seem to think that's the case because none of the court or other challenges have shown any substantial fraud in any state election. That's irrelevant. Congress on January 6 will not take up the question of whether there was fraud in any state's voting. Rather, the ONLY issue Congress could be concerned with is the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which means whether or not there was fraud not in the state voting but some irregularity in the Certifications submitted by the electors and transmitted to Congress (e.g., if a state sent in two certifications which didn't happen or were the certifications that were sent in done by persons other than the proper elector votes which also didn't happen). You need not believe me. The first link gives a scholarly confirmation of this point and the second link gives a more readable confirmation of this point:
A year ago, we gave a very favorable review to this 6-episode Season 1 of the Norwegian mini-series, Home for Christmas. See Link to Last Year's Review of Season 1 Season 2, another 6-episodes, is now available on Netflix and it too is very good. A little raunchy from time to time. But a really good look not so much at Christmas as at relationships and such. The episodes are just a half-hour each which is always appreciated, and while fluency in Norwegian is a big plus, it's not needed if you can read the sub-titles. The acting is first-rate and if you live somewhere that cold and snow don't exist, it's very pleasing on the eyes. You don't have to have watched the first season to enjoy the second, but, if you didn't watch the first season, you are in luck, because you get to go back and watch it before your watch the second season or after once you realize how enjoyable the second season is.
What appears below is a bit of a rant. Here in shorter form is the point: The people who are not essential to anything and not in line for succession to the presidency are just hypocrites, cowards, and pigs when they say they are serving as "model" to demonstrate the safety of the vaccines that there is scant supply of anyhow. What we really need by way of "models" are those willing to say: Let someone else, who is poorer than me and has to put themselves at jeopardy more than I do and is at more risk than me, go before me. I'll wait. That's virtue.
It has been disclosed now that congressional staffers are being moved to the front of the line and getting the Covid vaccines. There is no lame and irrelevant excuse such as modeling the safety of the vaccine to encourage others to get it (such as Pence's wife or Harris's husband--would it be too much for them to say they are going to serve as a model of waiting their turn and not butting line?), as if there were anywhere near the supply needed to give it to anywhere close to those who would take it immediately. No, they are just being declared "essential workers." If Biden does not speak out on what is clearly a growing inequity in the dosing of the vaccines, then we are in for a continuation of the swamp that swept Trump into office, and all the blather about unity and bringing the country together will be just that--blather. I don't like waiting for my turn to be vaccinated. And I'd willingly give up my place in line for the grocery clerks who are far more essential than any staffer and have no real alternative for putting food on their family table and a roof over their family's heads. I don't know if these staffers are staffers for Republicans in which event they have the excuse of already serving at the feet of corruption or for Democrats in which event they have no excuse, but I do know how to say shame on them, and why there is so much anger in this country when we all watch the growing inequality not just of income and wealth and bribing to get into college and now vaccination prioritization and in reality likely the allocation of every benefit that might be bestowed.
The next time you hear that the New Yorker is recommending movies to stream, put your hands over your ears and make the la-la sound or any sound that blocks out the New Yorker's recommendation. Uptown Girls, at least the first 20 minutes, is excruciatingly horrible in concept, plot, acting, or point. It wouldn't even make it as a Lifetime Movie for TV. The only mildly interesting thing to see is Dakota Fanning at age 8, but she's so annoying and unbelievable that any such interest fades quickly.
If you don't watch Fox News, you might not see what's coming from the Republicans in what will be an unrelenting attack on Biden. Just as the Democrats were (and still are) convinced that Trump was beholden to Russia, the Republicans are going to devote themselves for now in the Senate (and Katie bar the door if they take control of the House in 2022) to proving that Biden is beholden to China. By way of example, even one of the supposed mainstream Fox News programs went ballistic when Biden today referred to China as a "competitor" and not as an "enemy" or even an "adversary." And then they wrap it up with a bow bringing in Hunter Biden and Obama's weakness viz China. Ugh. I'm not sure this blog pays me enough to monitor for the benefit of my loyal readers what Fox News is doing.
We love our Teslas but have been disappointed that they have not had a bay for wirelessly charging our cellphones. Like a Xmas miracle, those days are over.
PS: The links are to the Tesla website. Wireless chargers that are designed for and will work in Teslas are available at various online outlets, including The Amazon, at about half the price.
We gave this a favorable review based on the first episode. We were promised it was a mini-series of just 4 episodes and that turns out to appear to be true. It will hold your attention. But, there are so many moving parts and sub-plots that, not only is it difficult to follow who is who and what is what, the director cannot figure out how to tie up everything or even most of everything at the end. So, there is an end, and that's better than there being no end, but it leaves one wondering why there were so many sub-plots. And, spoiler alert, the ending of the main plot is amateurish at best.
There aren't many Windows 10 apps that are worth much, much Sketch & Snip certainly is one and is deserving of a permanent space on your taskbar. Unfortunately, many people have reported that the icon for that (and all the other apps) no longer appear on the taskbar and the space they take up is just a blank. As far as I can tell, not one of the more than 10 suggestions found on The Google (with the exception of re-installing Windows or factory-resetting the computer, which has not been tried) works. I know our loyal readers can appreciate how frustrating this has been for our tech crew, not to mention how time-consuming. One word of caution, if you restart Windows Explorer (by either manually restarting or deleting and rebooting) your desk icons might get messed up but just reboot the computer again and that should solve that problem. For the time being, here's what you can do: Install a different screenshot extension on your browser (such as Lightshot which is very good) for access with 1 click and pin Sketch & Snip to your Start Menu Open-Shell (assuming your using the Windows 7 set-up) for access with 2 clicks. Yes, 2 clicks is worse than 1, which is why we will not cease until this conundrum has been solved.
A famous experiment called The Marshmallow Experiment was done in 1972. The experiment began by bringing each child into a private room, sitting them down in a chair, and placing a marshmallow on the table in front of them. At this point, the researcher offered a deal to the child. The researcher told the child that he was going to leave the room and that if the child did not eat the marshmallow while he was away, then they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow. However, if the child decided to eat the first one before the researcher came back, then they would not get a second marshmallow. So the choice was simple: one treat right now or two treats later. The children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures.
Given that those who embrace deferred gratification do better than those who do not, it should come as no surprise that the exponential rise in Covid-19 cases and deaths is a direct result of those who cannot defer gratification by socially distancing, wearing masks, and not traveling or gathering for family functions for even a few months more when everyone will be vaccinated and safe.
It has been represented to me that, despite some contrary signals, this is 4-episode mini-series that ends on the 4th episode. I'm not 100% sure yet having seen just the first episode, but so far, it's very very good. It's a 1998 Australian thriller with several sub-plots going at once. Sometimes it's difficult to know exactly who's who or what's what but, hey, it's a thriller. The acting is wonderful and the camerawork is daunting. It's not a classic holiday movie like Night Shift or Paint Your Wagon, and even though each episode is not the ideal 1/2 hour length, at one hour per episode, the story does not drag at all.
Click-N-Ship in Flat Rate boxes and envelopes is a wonderful service of the USPS. But say you mis-print or make some other mistake with the label which you've paid for but it cannot be used. Although the instructions on the USPS website as to how to get a refund are not obvious, it turns out processing a refund on-line is simple and fast. First, wait 3 days since you created the label so it is no longer useable for shipping. Second, go your USPS account and open Click-N-Ship, click on Shipping History, check the box next to the label eligible for a refund (it will say "no" in the Shipped column), and then a dialogue box will appear giving you the option to obtain a refund and confirm that you want a refund. Within hours, the refund will issue to the credit card you used to create the label.
[PS: If you search on USPS for how to do a refund, you likely will be taken to page where you have to put in the tracking number to get a refund. That page applies only to add-ons and extra services and not the cost of the shipping label itself. So, if that's the page you try to get a refund on and it doesn't work, there is no point going back to it the next day or day after because the result will not change]
In addition to the havoc and destruction Trump has caused since election day, both by deed and by dereliction of duty, unfortunately, he can, and likely will, do even more damage before Biden takes over. But wait, that's not the end: When Trump leaves the White House, he leaves with all of America's most vital secrets. Should Trump need a lot of money, or should he just wish to become as wealthy as he possibly can, those secrets (if he can remember them) certainly have cash value. Big cash value. Big leverage to build big buildings everywhere in the world.
Late Monday evening the US Congress
overwhelmingly passed a $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill, the
Consolidated Appropriations Act (“CAA”), that provides $600
stimulus payments to individuals, adds $300 to extended weekly
unemployment benefits, and provides more than $300 billion in
aid to small business.
The CAA also put to rest all questions relating
to the deductibility of expenses that were paid with the first
round of PPP loans. In the Act, Congress provided for the full
deductibility of expenses paid with PPP funds. The IRS had
previously ruled that even though the loans were not taxable
when forgiven, any expenses paid with the loans were not
deductible. The new Act ensures that the PPP loans are in fact,
fully nontaxable funds providing relief for Covid-19 ravaged
businesses.
The Act also replenished PPP funding and
provides for a second PPP loan for businesses facing severe
revenue reductions. Merry Christmas to all.
Year-End Planning
Given the economic pain suffered by many
businesses due to the national pandemic, taxable income is down
for many taxpayers. This is especially true now that PPP funds
are not taxable.
If you find yourself in this position, you may
want to reverse typical year-end tax planning where you
accelerate deductions and defer income to reduce current year
income. Instead, for years when income is down, taxpayers
should consider holding off on deductions that may provide a
more substantial benefit next year when they may be in a higher
tax bracket.
For example, moving business expenses and
charitable contributions to next year may provide a more
significant tax savings if income increases in 2021.
For those lucky taxpayers who were able to
thrive during these uncertain times, there is still time to
consider last minute tax planning before December 31.
-Older taxpayers should consider not taking
required minimum distributions (RMD) this year from their
pensions since they are not required for tax year 2020.
-Charitable contributions should be made before
December 31 if a taxpayer itemizes deductions. The CARES Act
also provides a $300 deduction for those taxpayers who do not
itemize.
[Prefatory Note: Our recent review of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom praised the adaption of what was a play into a movie, and recommended an Oscar be awarded accordingly. That post caught the attention of Terry Teachout of the WSJ who interviewed us on the topic of adapting plays to the big screen or streamed screen. Below is the upshot of that interview from courtesy of the WSJ]
If you want a product that is from a third-party seller, do not automatically buy it from The Amazon. Unless you are sure the product is in the U.S. at the time of purchase, and the seller has good ratings, if you have a problem with lack of delivery, you will get much faster cancellation and refund service if the order had been placed instead on the eBay. Also, unlike The Amazon (and yes, we know we mentioned this before--do yo seriously think our memory is not like a combination of a steel trap and a fine wine that improves with age, to-wit, we forget nothing), you can tell on The eBay the origin of the product while you cannot do so on The Amazon.
One of the main messages that carried Trump to the presidency and coalesced his cult following, reflecting Trump's brilliantly recognizing the anger seething in America, was "drain the swamp." Of course, draining the swamp was never on Trump's agenda as he created perhaps the worst swamp seen in America. Biden's message of "uniting the country" misses the mark. What the country needs is to actually drain the swamp. If drained, the country will unite. If not drained, it never will. Unfortunately, Biden appears oblivious to the swampiness he's already swimming in as legislators and their spouses and other swampy elitists and their spouses elbow ahead of front-line medical personnel and first responders and nursing home residents for Covid vaccinations, invoking the obvious malarkey that they are doing so to encourage the public to take the vaccine when it's not even available to the public. Nor does the new Covid relief package escape the stench of the swamp as it restores the three-martini business lunch deduction and doles out checks to families who earned $150,000 last year and suffered no job loss in 2020 while cutting the direct benefits for those who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. So, when Biden says this relief package is a "down payment" on what he will do once takes office, let's hope it's not a down payment on a bigger swamp.
PS: Submitted as a letter to certain editors, bound not to be published.
PPS: Here are some provisions in the Covid relief package that might or might not benefit you:
An increase in the deductibility of business meals from 50% to 100%. Even though there aren’t that many power breakfasts or three-martini lunches in these days of social distancing, President Trump thought it was important to include, according to the Washington Post.
Funding for two new Smithsonian museums, the Women’s History Museum and the Museum of the American Latino. More things to do in Washington when we’re allowed to travel again!
Creation of a new U.S. consulate in Tibet.
$2 billion set aside for the Space Force.
$500,000,000 for “Israeli Cooperative Programs.”
Elimination of surprise medical bills, in which patients at an in-network hospital or clinic receive treatment by an out-of-network practitioner, resulting in shockingly high bills. Now, patients will pay the in-network rate for all services and the insurance company and provider negotiate the reimbursement.
The repeal of rarely-enforced criminal laws prohibiting the transport of water hyacinths, alligator grass, or water chestnut plants across state lines; putting bogus theft-prevention decals on cars; or misusing the emblems of Smokey Bear, Woody Owl, or the 4-H Club.
A section about the reincarnation and succession of the Dalai Lama.
The prohibition of e-cigarette shipments through the U.S. Postal Service
It also extends a hodgepodge of tax breaks for NASCAR auto-racing tracks, craft distillers and other interests that would have otherwise expired at the end of the year.
The bill sets up an anti-doping program for horse racing, along with a new racetrack safety program, which would be handled by an independent body.
In too many (indeed, likely most) instances where a stage play is adapted to the big screen (or the big screen streamed to home viewing screens) much is lost, particularly the intimacy between the characters on stage and the audience. Not so with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (MRBB). While they didn't just shoot a play, they did do an adaptation and, if this doesn't win Best Adaption of a Stage Production to a Movie, then it will be the final proof there is much irretrievably wrong with the Academy. The writers and directors are to be applauded for the tight presentation in just over 1.5 hours, unlike so many recent movies that drag on for no apparent purpose. Viola Davis is simply superb. Okay, you're now saying, "Fine, but what's the movie about?" I don't know, other than it will give you an appreciation for the blues that you might not have had if you didn't take a summer school course at Penn in 1965 that examined the arts of the 1920s. I'm not going to spoil the ending but I will say, it's open to interpretation and debate. In sum, if you have a book club, you might deviate from the form and focus on MRBB for at least one session.
After you've watched the movie, you likely will want to learn how to do the Black Bottom dance. We put together an instructional for you: Link to Instructional We Put Together for You
I have been pummeled by requests re why this blog has focused attention on the FDA's loosening regulations on frozen cherry pies and French dressing. These have been highlighted because, with Trump leaving, we likely are going to see new regulations and an end to de-regulations. But to everything there is a season Link to Appropriate Video and perhaps he'll do this: Link to Appropriate Video
Adobe Flash Player is ending on December 31, 2020. For safety reasons, it should be removed from your computer, whether it's a Windows machine or a Mac. A simple search (putting "Flash Player" in the search box without quotes) should tell you if it's on your computer. If it is, the easiest way to install it from a Windows machine if you cannot find an uninstaller for it on your computer is with Adobe's Flash uninstall utility: Link to Utility and Instructions . There is a similar uninstaller for Macs, but I'm not savvy enough on Macs to give any direction in that regard. Sorry.
As the year and the Trump presidency draws to a close (assuming martial law is not imposed), there will be much looking back. We're not going to do that here except to ask one question, the answer to which we believe is a big zero: Is there anything about this country that is better off now than the day it was on the day Trump took office?
It's hard to believe that Elizabeth Moss would appear in a movie that is implausible to say the least and unbearable to watch. If you believe in ghosts or the supernatural or the possibility of being invisible but yet able to move animate objects, then this just might be the movie for you. No spoiler alert is needed here because I have no clue what happened during the second hour.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing to revoke the definition and standard of identity and quality for frozen cherry pie. The action responds to a citizen petition from the Association for Frozen Pies and from some blog called EDC Tech and Consumer Tips. Link to FDA Proposal
You might wake up one morning, turn on your computer, and shzam, the Windows 10 app icons are missing from the Taskbar. The app is actually there, and you can open it, but instead of an icon, it's blank space. At that point, you can do a search for a solution on The Google, and, as it turns out, it's not an uncommon problem and there are over 10 suggested ways to fix the problem. Here's what to do before trying any of them: First, reboot the computer; and second, if the reboot doesn't work, do a system restore.
As wonderful as their arrival is, unfortunately, the vaccines could not come soon enough to make up for the 100s of thousands of needless deaths and other damage that came from the total ineptitude or worse of our political leaders, including especially Trump who lives in another universe, his super-obedient lap dog Pence who headed the so-called White House Coronavirus Task Force, and toady Republican governors, none of whom could promote a mask mandate or even see fit to model healthy behavior by wearing a mask themselves. Worse, they became notorious modelers of how to conduct super-spreader events. Now, with not even enough vaccine available to begin inoculating front-line medical workers, these stalwarts of ineptitude and hypocrisy (along with their spouses such as Pence's wife) can't get on television soon enough to be photographed getting vaccinated supposedly to encourage those afraid of the vaccine to do the same when, of course, there is no vaccine available (and won't be for months) for them much less for the millions of others who have no reluctance to be vaccinated. When did Pence's wife become a front-line medical worker, or an essential worker of any kind, or a resident of a nursing facility, or a role-model for anything?
PS: A shorter version of this was submitted to the Arizona Republic. Don't hold your breadth waiting for it to be published.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is proposing to revoke the definition and standard of identity for French dressing. The action responds to a citizen petition from the Association for Dressings and Sauces and from some blog called EDC Tech and Consumer Tips.
The standard does not appear necessary to ensure that the product meets consumer expectations, and the FDA has tentatively concluded that it is no longer necessary to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers and may limit flexibility for innovation. The proposal is part of the FDA’s Nutrition Innovation Strategy (NIS). One of the goals of the NIS is to modernize food standards to maintain the basic nature and nutritional integrity of products while allowing industry flexibility for innovation to produce more healthful foods. The FDA believes it is important to take a fresh look at existing standards of identity in light of marketing trends and the latest nutritional science. Standards of identity are mandatory requirements related to the content and production of certain food products. Foods for which standards of identity have been established include bread, fruit jams, certain vegetable and fruit juices, and certain types of chocolate. The standard of identity for French dressing characterizes it as containing oil, acidifying and seasoning ingredients and allows additional safe and suitable ingredients.
There is no doubt 2020 has been a year like no other (at least since 1918 and, even then, given the changes in technology and the economy, 2020 is still a year like no other). Some of the new adaptations might be permanent or might fade away or somewhere in the middle. For example, working remotely from home might become far more prevalent for many, which would have profound effect on office buildings and commuting systems. Business trips for meetings might become far less frequent in favor of Zoom-style meetings. The more interesting question as 2021 approaches and the post-vaccine future rolls out is this: Which of these "changes" were the result of the pandemic vs. to what extent did the pandemic simply accelerate these "changes" that would have happened any how? Illustratively, would releasing movies immediately for home streaming have replaced movie theatres pandemic or no pandemic? Same question for housing patterns, work places, elimination of snow days with remote learning, obvious ongoing changes and challenges for higher education, America actually implementing economic and medical safety nets, and on and on and on.
[Prefatory Note: The Robinhood trading platform has opened high-frequency and options trading to the everyday person. In many ways, it's become more like a game than an investment strategy, but substantial sums can be won or lost. That said, this cautionary piece from the WSJ lays out what at least one state sees as improper practices engaged in by Robinhood]
The Wall Street Journal first reported early Wednesday the state’s intention to file the administrative complaint. The document focuses on the technological outages the platform has experienced and says Robinhood incentivizes frequent use, including by allowing customers with limited or no experience to attempt more complicated trades.
Robinhood disagrees with the allegations, a spokeswoman said in a statement, and the company intends to defend itself vigorously.
“Over the past several months, we’ve worked diligently to ensure our systems scale and are available when people need them,” she said. “We’ve also made significant improvements to our options offering, adding safeguards and enhanced educational materials.”
The complaint from the office of William Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, marks the latest round of scrutiny that the popular brokerage has faced in its short history. Since it was founded less than a decade ago, Robinhood has exploded in popularity, amassing more than 13 million customer accounts. Traders tend to be drawn to the user-friendly platform that allows customers to trade securities like stocks for free.
Its explosive growth in recent years has also made it the target of probes from regulators. Last year, Robinhood agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle claims from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which alleged the company didn’t take steps to ensure it was getting the best prices for customer orders. The company agreed to settle without admitting or denying fault.
How Robinhood Is Shaking Up the Brokerage Industry
How Robinhood Is Shaking Up the Brokerage Industry
As millions of new traders sign up for the investment app Robinhood, the company is facing scrutiny for enabling some inexperienced users to make risky bets. WSJ spoke with a financial education professional and two Robinhood traders about how the app is shaking up the brokerage industry. (Originally Published August 6, 2020)
The accusations from Massachusetts center on the tactics that the company uses to keep customers engaged, claiming that it “encourages customers to use the platform constantly” through what it calls “gamification.” The complaint alleges that, through the promise of free stocks, push notifications and its signature digital confetti, Robinhood encourages “continuous and repeated engagement with its application.” State regulators allege Robinhood allowed one customer with no investment experience to make more than 12,700 trades in just over six months.
In another example, the regulators point to Robinhood’s rollout of a new cash-management feature, accompanied by a wait list for customers to sign up for early access. Customers were given the ability to improve their position on the wait list by “tapping” a fake credit card in the app up to 1,000 times a day, the complaint says.
It also alleges Robinhood violated its own rules regarding options trading by approving customers to engage in the practice without having the necessary qualifications. Options allow traders to pay a relatively small sum for a big return if their wagers prove correct. In turn, however, losses can add up if traders’ bets are wrong.
Like many brokerages, Robinhood makes money by a practice called payment for order flow, sending customer orders to trading firms in return for cash payments. By encouraging inexperienced investors to continuously execute trades, “Robinhood prioritized its revenue over the best interest of its customers,” the complaint says.
It also addresses the recent outages Robinhood experienced that sidelined traders from accessing their accounts at different points this year. “Robinhood failed to adequately protect its customers and their assets” by “failing to implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent and respond to outages and disruptions on its trading platform,” the state said.
In an interview before the paperwork was filed, Mr. Galvin said the complaint aims to protect young Massachusetts investors. The platform, he said, “is not presented as serious investing with substantial risk.”
“It’s presented as some sort of game that you might be able to win,” he added. The complaint estimates that as of early December, Robinhood has nearly 500,000 customers in Massachusetts with accounts totaling over $1.6 billion.
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Massachusetts regulators, under Mr. Galvin, are known for taking a hard line against financial companies, previously bringing probes against Charles Schwab Corp. and Fidelity Investments, among others.
But the complaint against Robinhood focuses, in part, on what the regulator says is the company’s violation of the state’s new fiduciary rule, which it began enforcing in September. The complaint marks Mr. Galvin’s first enforcement action of the rule.
The regulation stipulates that a broker-dealer has a duty of loyalty to its customers, in part by making recommendations that give priority to the customers’ interests without regard to the interests of any other party. Regulators say the lists of popular trades to which users have access have the potential to influence the securities that traders buy, without the company conducting “a suitability analysis” of those investments.
“This is no different from a broker-dealer agent handing a list of securities to a customer, pretending to be surprised when the customer purchases securities from that list, and then proclaiming that he made no recommendations to the customer,” the complaint says.
Robinhood’s spokeswoman said the company is a self-directed broker-dealer and doesn’t make investment recommendations.
Among other requested relief, Massachusetts regulators seek to require Robinhood to engage consultants to review its infrastructure in response to the platform outages and to enhance its policies for approving users for options trading. The complaint also suggests an administrative fine be placed on Robinhood.
Mr. Galvin said the case will be heard by an independent hearing officer. Robinhood is able to appeal the decision.
Below is a column by the Philip Boas of the Arizona Republic (if it's too small to read even after you hit the button to enlarge it, don't worry, whether or not it's Scottish, it's crap). Here is the text of letter that was submitted in response which assuredly will not be published: "Phil Boas’s column (Dec. 17 at 15A) lists several instances where various Republicans did not kowtow to Trump to assure us that “There is no crisis -- Trump is not a threat to democracy.” Putting aside that the column ignores four years of Republican capitulation to Trump’s assault on our democratic institutions and norms, much of which was successful and could have lasting effect, Mr. Boas’s view would be akin to reporting on 9/11 that there was no crisis because of the 4,000 commercial jet planes that were in the air that morning, 3,996 landed safely and did not crash into any building. Perhaps Mr. Boas might enlighten us in a future column as to what Trump and his Republican enablers might have done that would have threatened our democracy."
After we posted our review of the Hummingbird Project (based on a true story about laying a cable to cut milliseconds off of high-frequency trades), we have been flooded with interest on the topic. This appears to be the case because of the number of loyal readers and others now doing their own high-frequency trading on Robinhood, and many of whom are getting rich--others not so much. The WSJ, which loyal readers know monitor our communications, took heed, and published the following informative article:
Because light travels nearly 50% faster through air than glass, it takes about one-third less time to send data through hollow-core fiber than through the same length of standard fiber.
The difference is often just a minuscule fraction of a second. But in high-frequency trading, that can make the difference between profits and losses. HFT firms use sophisticated algorithms and ultrafast data networks to execute rapid-fire trades in stocks, options and futures. Many are secretive about their trading strategies and technology.
Hollow-core fiber is the latest in a series of advances that fast traders have used to try to outrace their competition. A decade ago, a company called Spread Networks spent about $300 million to lay fiber-optic cable in a straight line from Chicago to New York, so traders could send data back and forth along the route in just 13 milliseconds, or thousandths of a second. Within a few years the link was superseded by microwave networks that reduced transmission times along the route to less than nine milliseconds.
HFT firms have also used lasers to zip data between the data centers of the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Inc., and they have embedded their algorithms in superfast computer chips. Now, faced with the limits of physics and technology, traders are left fighting over nanoseconds.
“The time increments of these improvements have gotten markedly smaller,” said Michael Persico, chief executive of Anova Financial Networks, a technology provider that runs communications networks used by HFT firms.
Chicago-based DRW Holdings LLC and Jump Trading LLC are among the trading firms that have used hollow-core fiber, people familiar with the matter said. Jump’s venture-capital arm has invested in Lumenisity Ltd., a U.K. startup that makes such fiber, one of the people said.
High-frequency traders use hollow-core fiber for short distances of several hundred yards at most, according to industry engineers and executives. One common use, they say, is to connect the data center housing an exchange’s systems to a nearby communications tower. From there, HFT firms transmit data onward through cross-country networks of microwave antennas.
Replacing standard fiber with hollow-core fiber over that brief stretch might speed up a firm’s network by a few hundred nanoseconds. A nanosecond is a billionth of a second.
Anova started using hollow-core fiber about two years ago after a few trading firms deployed it, Mr. Persico said. Two other firms that provide communications services for high-speed traders, McKay Brothers LLC and BSO Network Solutions Ltd., also said they use hollow-core fiber in their networks.
Hollow-core fiber was pioneered in the 1990s but never gained widespread use because of a key problem: Signals sent through such fiber fade faster than over standard fiber, making it impractical to use hollow-core fiber for long distances. It is also costly to manufacture because of its intricate structure.
In recent years, though, the cost has come down and some manufacturers have succeeded in creating hollow-core fiber that can transmit data over longer distances. That has spurred interest from traders.
One manufacturer, OFS, has received more than a dozen inquiries about hollow-core fiber from HFT firms or providers of high-speed trading networks during the past year, said Daryl Inniss, director of new business development at OFS. Hollow-core fiber made by OFS—a U.S.-based unit of Japan’s Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd.—is already being used by several firms active in HFT or trading technology, he added.
Lumenisity, the startup backed by Jump, is betting that hollow-core fiber will find uses beyond trading, for instance in telecommunications and 5G networks. “We see HFT as an early adopter for the use of hollow-core,” Lumenisity Executive Chairman David Parker said in an interview. He declined to comment on his firm’s relationship with Jump.
The jury is out on whether hollow-core fiber will make deeper inroads into HFT. Industry skeptics say that even if manufacturers create fiber that can send data for tens or hundreds of miles, it is unlikely to replace wireless networks that transmit over straight lines through the air since underground cables inevitably have bends that slow transmission.
Supporters say hollow-core fiber could be used for high-bandwidth links in places like northern New Jersey where the NYSE and Nasdaq have their data centers, or even under the Atlantic, connecting London and New York, if the technology gets good enough.
“When you’re sending light into a solid fiber, it’s like you’re sending it through a window 50 miles thick,” said Dave Gustafson, a former head of wireless engineering at Jump. “With hollow-core, you’re sending it through 50 miles of air.”
