The color of money

I was re-reading a book called "Liar's Poker" which was about finance, wall street, the S&L bailout and that era of the late 80s and early 90s.  The book opens with Guttfreund at Solomon brothers challenging a trader named Merriwhether to one game of liar's poker for "a million dollars and no tears" which means a million and don't whine when you lose.  It is a remarkable mentality

Paul Singer runs a pretty big fund in New York. He also doesn't like regulation of his work. It doesn't matter that what he does and his firm does is essentially set the market spinning in the direction they want and these fellas play liar's poker with the economy every day. He, Mr. Singer, is leading the charge for the GOP this fall in the attempt to get those nasty democrats out - the bad guys who actually want to watch that Mr. Singer and his horde don't run amuck again.

If you think that the stock market, for instance, is where everyone has an equal shake at making money, well I've got a bridge to sell you. Most of all trades in the market are done by the Mr. Singers of the world - not just a few percent but about 80%.  Watch what happens in the last 10 minutes of any trading day or immediately at the market opening. I personally know traders who have a million dollars placed at 9:29am and it all off the table at 9:31.   Multiply that by 10,000 and then tell me why these fellas are entitled to less regulation.