Vanguard's CIO (Gus Sauter) has mentioned in a CNBC interview (see http://www.cnbc.com/id/49434073) that the liquidity providing aspects of HFT tech are valuable - ie, the tools that help the real market makers fill orders on the other side. In the same breath he says the abusive practices (predatory trading) need to be reigned in.
Chris Stucchio's post seems to be defending the "predatory" side of HFT's as "spreading around" the information advantage conferred by hard work and due diligence into the workings of a company.
I'm refuting that by describing the actual effort that goes into attaining the information advantage obtained by Einhorn, Ackman, etc he describes and contrasting it with the effort involved in HFT predatory trading.
Which effort is more important and should be rewarded?