Earnings are sport; just a game on the screen.
Wealth is the score and the players are meat.
Markets determine the price of a bean,
Residue running from acre to ocean;
Where plankton will bloom
And choke out the fish:
An oily wound plumes
In petri gulf dish.
Drunken suspenders are typing by dark,
Networks of millions are trading their points;
Feeding the creatures that dine on the spark
Arbitrage sends in a wire through computers—
With cables for nerves
And motorized arms,
A camera eye serves
To watch as we farm.
“By 10am it emerged that Mr Perkins had single-handedly moved the global price of oil to an eight-month high during a "drunken blackout". Prices leapt by more than $1.50 a barrel in under half an hour at around 2am – the kind of sharp swing caused by events of geo-political significance. Ten times the usual volume of futures contracts changed hands in just one hour... The FSA will consider re-approving him as a broker after the ban, if he has recovered from his alcohol problem, but noted "Mr Perkins poses an extreme risk to the market when drunk".”
– Rowena Mason, The Telegraph, 5:45AM BST 30 Jun 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7862246/How-a-broker-spent-520m-in-a-drunken-stupor-and-moved-the-global-oil-price.html
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