Without ubiquitous computers and internet, people could think long term because there was no immediate info available and even less so publicly.
That's a good point and one it's easy to underestimate. People were forced to think long term because there was no alternative.
But that dodn't always make a difference. Bubbles and fraud have always happened, and computers didn't make them more possible.
What computer economics could do is make them more difficult. You can legislate choke points, taxes, delays, stops, tithes and limits on markets which would never be possible with paper.
You can hide paper. But if you mandate total information transparency with full accounting and audit trails, computer economics gives you a reasonable chance of getting that.
It's not trading speed, it's lack of transparency and differential access to intelligence (of both kinds) that create problems.
As to computers, I mean to say I trust the humans' natural speed of reaction. I'm not comfortable going 100 mph and leaving the control to the computer. There's something inherently wrong, to my intuiton, about an industry based on infrastructure which so widely overpasses humans. The best and most solid company, bank or not, can fall and be destroyed in a few minutes of illiquidity, without anyone being able to intervene. This was not possible before. There was a certain inertia and space to things and events before that was leaving us time to ponder and react.
I wouldn't like to be regulated by a computer btw, who in a second can make the decision that I'm on a terrorist black list and before anyone can do anything, ban me from taking my flight, or throw me in prison (policemen not having the authority to disregard its orders).
And how can you have transparency with such complexity and such volumes of information? Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
