Robinhood's Imperiled Investors; Bison Management; and River Management

#Hahhah Levintova, "Who Really Gets Rich From Robinhood," Mother Jones, July + August 2021. - "From its founding, [Robinhood's] business model was dependent on customers trading frequently, allowing the company the chance to earn a different kind of a commission -- known as PFOF, or payment for order flow -- from every transaction." "Lawmakers, financial experts, and regulators have pointed out that the order flow payments present glaring conflicts of interest. One of them is that the pay-per-trade system incentivizes brokers and market makers to encourage more -- rather than more-informed -- trading." 

According to a recent lawsuit, market makers paid just 17 cents per 100 shares on regular stocks, but 58 cents per 100 shares on options contracts." "Robinhood is stuffed with video game-like elements that lure investors into trading more, which is a losing strategy for most."

"This March, the House Financial Services Committee echoed concerns that platforms like Robinhood, 'encourage behavior similar to a gambling addiction.' " "Robinhood is ultimately encouraging users to act against their own financial interests by making frequent trades -- while PFOF and its related profits pile up for the app and its superrich collaborators." "Typically, brokers take 20 percent with the rest going to the customers as price improvement. Robinhood's contracts flipped this ratio, giving it 80 percent."

Michelle Nighwis, "The Long Road Home," Sierra, Summer 2021. - "In the early 1700s, North America was home to an estimated 20 million to  30 million bisons, more than enough to circle the equator if laid nose to tail." "In 1874, after Congress passed a bill restricting bison hunting, President Grant vetoed it. Twelve years later there were fewer than 300 free-roaming plains bison left in the entire United States." "Over the past century, the expansion of industrial farming and the continued absence of large herds of free-roaming bison have shrunk the total extent of the North American tallgrass prairie from the size of Texas to little bigger than Delaware, turning it into one of the most endangered landscapes in the world."

The treaty [the Linnii Initiative] -- signed by more than 30 tribes and First Nations in the U.S. and Canada -- 'really is about renewal and and restoration and cooperation' says Blackfoot researcher Leroy Little Bear, one of the original organizers of the Linnii Initiative. "While there are now an estimated half million bison on the North American plains, some 30,000 managed primarily for conservation other than commercial sale, politics has kept the fences in place, and only a few bison are fully free-ranging." 

#Jeremy Miller, "The Whisper of a River," Sierra, Summer 2021. - "In plain terms, 'vocational passage' means that the fish can migrate and complete their life cycle without human intervention," "In less than a century, the San Joaquin River was transformed from a free-flowing salmon superhighway into a corridor of agriculture and commerce." "In spite of the limitations, the salmon have shown tantalizing  signs of revitalization."  

The salvation of the San Joaquin River and its salmon, Julie Rentner, president of the Chico-based River Partners, believes, will ultimately depend on replacing the 'siloed and segregated' water policy that has dominated California for decades with a more holistic, ecosystem-based form of management.