Ever Hear the One About ...

What was that about? The Standard Chartered scandal, I mean. Nearly two weeks ago, we were led to believe that the big British bank had conducted some $250 billion worth of illegal transactions with Iranian institutions. But, after the charges were brought by the New York State Department of Financial Services, other regulators, in Washington and London, expressed shock. They were upset, first, because they had been blindsided and, second, because they, too, had been investigating the bank and were coming to the conclusion that its behavior was largely legal.

Then, on the eve of a public hearing that could have cost the bank its New York license, Standard Chartered settled for $340 million. One the one hand, that is a huge sum for a state regulator to collect. On the other hand, it is a rounding error for the bank, which quietly put out the word that it had settled to put the bad publicity behind it. (Its calculation appears to have been a good one — the bank’s stock quickly rose once the settlement was announced.)

What is frustrating is that here we are, after these inflammatory charges have been hurled, with no idea whether they are true. If Standard Chartered routinely conducted illegal transactions, then Benjamin Lawsky, the chief New York bank regulator, showed the kind of spine that other regulators have largely lacked. And if it didn’t? Then the bank is the victim of a publicity-hungry regulator. Neither prospect is fun to contemplate.

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Someone told me recently that a handful of firms that use high-frequency trading strategies are developing a new microwave system to connect their Chicago and New York offices. The reason? To shave literally nanoseconds off the time it takes to complete trades. It’s true. It’s also madness.

After I wrote about high-frequency trading two weeks ago, I wound up thinking I had understated how corrosive — and pervasive — it has become. In fact, the markets have been largely optimized for high-frequency trading. The exchanges cater to these traders. Everyone scrambles to get their business. Firms like Knight Capital — which lost $440 million a couple weeks ago in a computer fiasco — both take orders from brokers and run their own trading systems. That gives them, undeniably, advantages for their own trading. The regulators, focused on the prospect of computer malfunctions that lead to wild price swings, are missing the forest for the trees. The real issue is the capture of the markets by high-frequency traders, not the occasions their computers run amok.

As for the long-term investor or the companies that want to tap the capital markets, their concerns scarcely matter. High-frequency trading is where Wall Street now makes its money. That’s all that counts.

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Have you been following the recent athletic scandal swirling around the University of North Carolina? It has been brewing since last August when The News and Observer of Raleigh obtained the transcript of a football player who’d suspiciously completed a senior-level course the summer before his freshman year. This triggered an inquiry going back to 2007, which revealed that the African and Afro-American Studies Department was a haven for no-show classes, grades that were quietly changed and bogus independent studies courses. The purpose of these shenanigans, it would appear, was to keep athletes, especially football players, eligible.

The department chairman quickly resigned, and the university promised to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. But, earlier this week, a transcript was posted online that appears to have been the scholastic record of the former U.N.C. — and current Chicago Bears — player Julius Peppers. Peppers attended North Carolina long before 2007; his first year was 1998. And his transcript — with its summer courses that magically allowed him to retain his eligibility — could serve as a template for how to remain eligible without getting anything that approaches an education. It also suggests that these problems have been going on a lot longer than 2007.

Is North Carolina a particularly bad actor? Hardly. But gaming the system has become a necessity for every big-time football and basketball school. In the wake of the Penn State scandal, the N.C.A.A. is vowing to never again allow universities to put athletics ahead of academics. But it’s too late for that. The only real answer is to stop the hypocrisy, pay the players and let them attend school — if they want.

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Let’s see: It’s been three months since Facebook went public. Since then, its stock has fallen around 50 percent, plaintiffs’ lawyers are lining up to sue it over its botched initial offering, and the news coming out of Facebook has been unremittingly lousy.

The person who was most reluctant to take Facebook public was Mark Zuckerberg, its youthful chief executive. I wonder what he’s thinking now.