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OK. Chapter 7 of Book 4 of #WealthOfNations is tough going. It's long. It's serious. It's all about colonies.

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that the chapter #AdamSmith says is about colonies is, in fact, about colonies. (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Colonies were a vexed subject when #AdamSmith was writing, and they’re even more complicated now. So, before we even get to the tweeting, here’s a link to that thread on Smith and “savage nations.” (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets


The reason for the ancient Greeks and Romans to settle colonies was straightforward: they didn’t have enough space for their growing populations. Their colonies were treated as “emancipated children”—connected but independent. (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(Both these things are in contrast to the European colonies, as we'll see.) (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ancient Greeks and Romans needed more space because the land was owned by an increasingly small number of citizens and farming and nearly all trades and arts were performed by slaves. It was hard for a poor freeman to improve his life. (IV.vii.a.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Breaking: Not only does John Solomon continue to include more and more false claims in his propaganda, but after 4 years of "reporting" on FISA he still doesn't know what FBI Director signs to on FISA.


In reality, this is what John Solomon's "SMOKING GUN" says:

Steele was considered reliable (true!), his sources were in a position to report on what they reported on (true!), the reporting corroborated stuff in the report [that, btw, is mostly classified]


This paragraph, for example, includes 3 lies and one exaggeration: First, CIA informed FBI that until 2011, they asked Page questions about the RU intelligence officers trying to recruit him.


That does NOT cover the most alarming thing he did in 2015 or one RU intelligence officer that Page did not tell the CIA about while still an approved contact.

USG had gotten opinions about Steele that weren't entirely favorable (but unsurprising for operations officer), but this is before questions abt source network.
Some thoughts on how big market making firms (eg Jane Street, Susquehanna, Optiver) are structured. Note I have not worked at any of these firms so this is not based on any insider knowledge, just talking to people in the industry and extrapolating a bit.


A “pure” market making operation is based on clipping spreads, ie buy low, sell high, keep inventory low, keep risks (eg greeks) tightly hedged. Skew your bid/offer based on your inventory to try and offload it as quickly as possible without impacting your profit too much.

This kind of trading has enormous risk-adjusted returns (Sharpe > 10, ~no down days) but it’s hard to scale it because your P&L is a function of two things — volume and volatility — that you don’t have any control over.

This is a problem because the costs of running a pure MM firm (mainly infrastructure and employee comp) are increasing and profit margins are decreasing. So many firms turn to prop trading as a way to increase P&L at the cost of some Sharpe.

One way to approach this is to make your price skew dependent on factors other than your inventory, eg if you think the market is going up you skew prices a little higher to encourage people to sell to you and discourage them from buying from you.
.@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission @marydejevsky @freddiesayers


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) .@bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report: