Can you tell the difference between perky Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway and real-world-Scrooge McDuck analog Warren Buffet?

If so, congratulate yourself. You are smarter than the assembled might of the super-smart Wall Street crowd who, according to business-types and professionals, need their obscene bonuses because to deny them would take “talent” out of the field.

See, every time that Hollywood starlet Ann HATHAWAY gets media buzz and attention, stocks in Berkshire HATHAWAY go up.

That’s because Wall Street trading firms set up robo-trading algorithms to perform hyper-fast trades based on data-mined media snapshots. Only, the robots are about as wise and competent as the industry which creates them.

This means that the algorithm has to be “programmed” on the level of  a simple wildcard search.  This is like doing a search on your computer for “*ant” and assuming that every result is a picture of an insect.

Paul Krugman, who has a Nobel prize in economics, says:

Why? The claim is that it’s the fault of robotrading algorithms, which now account for most of the market, and which sometimes rely among other things on trends in news coverage.

The hidden ZOMG WTF! detail in the quote above: “which now account for most of the market.” Awesome.

The people who claim to be Masters of the Universe are naked emperors.  And their robots are just as stupid as they are.