Opacity of financial instruments extends into social and political life.

Evidence

Wish-granting genies have spectral, ghostlike properties, including the ability to swiftly disappear from their own masters’ vision. Opacity is a core feature of financial instruments in contemporary markets (and, as I will argue in subsequent chapters, a central tenet of the commoditized technologies permeating modern-day social and political life). In the days of algorithmic high-frequency trading, and the emergence of “dark pools” (the exclusive forums of block trading of securities evading the transparency requirements of exchange markets), the intricate workings of computational bundling of securities and alternative trading systems remain inaccessible not only to the public but to the majority of traders themselves. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 60

Categorization

• XREF: Direct link to reader’s thesis: the opacity that defines derivatives is what allows speculative logic to penetrate everyday domains. — connects to: Financial markets reshaped households, corporations, and states over the past 30 years. — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 10; Finance has come to dominate American economic life. — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 7; Financial practice expresses class and acts as a control mechanism — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 20 (+1 more)
• SEED: The ghost/genie framing of opaque speculation could seed an essay on how financialized opacity shapes self-presentation in dating apps and identity markets.