Returned to library Mo 11/3/14
I read about half of this over a couple of weeks.
The premise is fairly obvious. The speed of trading on wall street is now measured in microseconds or even fractions of them, and the trading public gets 'minute to minute' coverage. This gives a big advantage to the insiders who can stay far, far ahead of pack. Even an infinitesimal fraction of a second makes a critical (and lucrative) difference.
Traders screaming into telephones and waving arms on a trading room floor have absolutely no relation to the modern reality.
Throughout the history of the market, whenever laws have been put in place to stop malfeasance, lawyers for the traders have always found a way around the new rules. In a capitalist society the smartest people will be drawn to where the 'big money' is at, and the market is a real-life metaphor for capitalism. Although government can never prevent them from trying to rig the market, that doesn't mean that they should give up. 'Giving Up' seems to be the Republican answer to the problem (however, they don't even see this as a problem. It's just the way of the world.)
"Where will we be 'in the room'?"
Fiber optic cables make the difference and some of the traders vie for space in the room where the computers are located. The closer to the source is very important (the difference is so small it's almost unmeasurable), and a matter of inches or feet over hundreds of miles of cable will be seen to be of value.
Amazon-
http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Boys-Michael-Lewis/dp/0393244660
wikipedia-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Boys
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