The same can be said for Fox News and the right then. What's the difference?
Well, as trivial as the analogy might be, if a vegan restaurant owner opens a vegan restaurant in order to make money, there's no hypocrisy there: making money and being vegan are not mutually exclusive. He's not cynically pandering to his customers, because he himself is vegan. If, on the other hand, he eats meat and opens a vegan restaurant, that's different.
If Fox News leans to the right, and it's target audience are right wingers, then there's no hypocrisy or cynicism there. If someone defends capitalism, that makes them a right winger as far as I'm concerned. There's no such thing as left-wing capitalism. So if you're a capitalist corporation intent on making money, and you lean to the right, and your target audience are right wingers, you're not pandering to them, because you believe in the same thing that they do. If, on the other hand, you're a corporation intent on making money, but your target audience are left wingers, then there's a contradiction there, and that does qualify as pandering. Look at it this way: how much money does CNN donate to non-profit organizations dedicated to progressive causes? Probably a couple of dimes or nickles, compared to the revenue that they make each year. CNN can talk about progressive causes all day, but if they don't actually put their money where their mouth is, then they're just being cynical. Of course, someone may accuse me of the same and ask me to donate a ton of money, but here's the thing: I'm just an individual with a measly income, I'm not a gigantic corporation with an ad revenue in the millions.
I assure you no one of the left is looking to CNN for guidance or affirmation. We can barely tolerate half the shit on MSNBC. CNN has been bending over backwards to NOT be accused of this bias for about two decades, by filling nearly every single pundit panel with the most batshit crazy right-wingers who will agree to go in front of a camera, mostly balanced out by both-sides centrists and former Clinton or Obama campaign managers.
As for the Press Briefing, the fact that they are happening AT ALL on a daily basis would be cause for celebration from any news outlet. The podium literally had dust on it because it hadn't been used in god knows how long.
As for FOX, yes, everyone knows what they are, but it's BS they sell themselves or have every admitted to being a right-wing network. The tagline from their inception (which I was there for) was "Fair and Balanced" and the whole point of adding the "News" portion was to convince people watching GOP TV was legitimate, down the middle reporting. And that is still the dynamic to this day. It has never changed. It's why they still employ people like Brett Baier and Chris Wallace for plausible deniability. The fact that everyone sees through does not mean the organization itself is open and honest about what it is. It hasn't been that way from the moment they went on the air, and it isn't now.
Furthermore, now that OAN and Newsmax are easily available through any free streaming service, they are going to have to go even further into the fever swamp than they have up to this point, and, frankly, I don't even know what that means anymore. At a certain point, you max out your stats on crazy. There are no tomes that can raise it above a certain level.
Only 5 Republican Senators didn't vote to reject the impeachment articles outright. That gives us about 15 total by my recollection (5 in Senate, 10 in the House). Let me state this very plainly. The vast, vast, VAST majority of elected Republican lawmakers are saying they are either perfectly fine with, or, worse, outright approve of inciting a violent attack against a co-equal branch of government as a legitimate political tactic.
Being scared if a Trump tweet is no longer an excuse. It means the exact thing many of us have been arguing. It's an authoritarian party comprised of mostly authoritarians, who I believe would STILL be voting this way even if Mike Pence's head had ended up on a pike.
TI don't know why you guys say that CNN is leftist or to the left. CNN panders to the left, but I'm willing to bet that it's board of directors is not left leaning. We're talking about a multi-million corporate giant here. Each year, CNN's ad revenue is in the millions. This is not a state-owned company operating in China, it's a private company operating in a capitalist country.
Capitalism and socialism is a spectrum. If the state dictate who I hire, in which therms, for how long time, etc and regulate every detail about how I operate my business, I an really the "proprietary of the means of production?" 100% state control over the means of production is impossible. Even in North Korea, you have black markets and one year after the end of USSR, there was hundreds of Russian missionaries.
Under close to 100% socialism, everyone suffers EXCEPT the party and those who are strongly tied to the party.
That said, more state control can benefit big corporations at the expense of smaller business.
The gaming industry is not that regulated, but imagine if to sell a game, you need to "get approval" in a regulatory agency, submit 666 different types of documentations, had hundreds of regulatory determinations saying what a game can and cannot do. A indie dev could't do that. Bug a EA/M$/etc could and heavily regulating the gaming market would lead inevitably to few giant companies.
Apply that logic with every other sector. Security, defense, healthcare...
TI don't know why you guys say that CNN is leftist or to the left. CNN panders to the left, but I'm willing to bet that it's board of directors is not left leaning. We're talking about a multi-million corporate giant here. Each year, CNN's ad revenue is in the millions. This is not a state-owned company operating in China, it's a private company operating in a capitalist country.
Capitalism and socialism is a spectrum. If the state dictate who I hire, in which therms, for how long time, etc and regulate every detail about how I operate my business, I an really the "proprietary of the means of production?" 100% state control over the means of production is impossible. Even in North Korea, you have black markets and one year after the end of USSR, there was hundreds of Russian missionaries.
Under close to 100% socialism, everyone suffers EXCEPT the party and those who are strongly tied to the party.
That said, more state control can benefit big corporations at the expense of smaller business.
The gaming industry is not that regulated, but imagine if to sell a game, you need to "get approval" in a regulatory agency, submit 666 different types of documentations, had hundreds of regulatory determinations saying what a game can and cannot do. A indie dev could't do that. Bug a EA/M$/etc could and heavily regulating the gaming market would lead inevitably to few giant companies.
Apply that logic with every other sector. Security, defense, healthcare...
A video game can't cause physical harm or death if it is shipped in a defective state.
No one is sitting around writing regulations out of spite for business owners. Regulations are put in place to minimize the risk of harm against actual human beings. Yes, this comes at the expense of money and profit to one degree or another.
TI don't know why you guys say that CNN is leftist or to the left. CNN panders to the left, but I'm willing to bet that it's board of directors is not left leaning. We're talking about a multi-million corporate giant here. Each year, CNN's ad revenue is in the millions. This is not a state-owned company operating in China, it's a private company operating in a capitalist country.
Capitalism and socialism is a spectrum. If the state dictate who I hire, in which therms, for how long time, etc and regulate every detail about how I operate my business, I an really the "proprietary of the means of production?" 100% state control over the means of production is impossible. Even in North Korea, you have black markets and one year after the end of USSR, there was hundreds of Russian missionaries.
Under close to 100% socialism, everyone suffers EXCEPT the party and those who are strongly tied to the party.
That said, more state control can benefit big corporations at the expense of smaller business.
The gaming industry is not that regulated, but imagine if to sell a game, you need to "get approval" in a regulatory agency, submit 666 different types of documentations, had hundreds of regulatory determinations saying what a game can and cannot do. A indie dev could't do that. Bug a EA/M$/etc could and heavily regulating the gaming market would lead inevitably to few giant companies.
Apply that logic with every other sector. Security, defense, healthcare...
A video game can't cause physical harm or death if it is shipped in a defective state.
No one is sitting around writing regulations out of spite for business owners. Regulations are put in place to minimize the risk of harm against actual human beings. Yes, this comes at the expense of money and profit to one degree or another.
Wrong. Most regulations are completely nonsensical. 109 laws for a pillow
And this not talking about forced diversity hiring, the tons of hours dedicated only to pay taxes due the fact that the tax system is over complicated. My uncle owned a nightclub. He got in trouble many times due fiscals and nonsensical regulations.
To be fair to CNN, and media, the last administration did blatantly lie, argue, name call, threaten and bully whenever anyone questioned their lies.
Remember spicer and his "biggest inauguration crowd ever" lie? It was only downhill with the truth from there.
It is a refreshing change that that is no longer going to be the case and you no longer have to deal with name calling silly gaslighting liars. Biden's team might lie, but at least they won't insult you while doing it.
I'm becoming increasingly exasperated with what I'm seeing from the far-left in response to Biden's first week. Today, both the House AND Senate Democrats signed on to an attempt to raise the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour by 2025. The MOMENT this happened, the usual suspects, who have been quoting the $15.00 figure for 4+ years, all of a sudden say it's insufficient and should happen immediately.
First off, NO minimum wage increase is just going to take effect in total one morning. That is never how it works, it is always gradual. And secondly, now I'm supposed to believe the ask hasn't been $15.00 for all this time and is now supposed to be $25.00?? Since when, six hours ago?? There is a large section of online leftist media whose only purpose is to snipe at Democrats no matter what they propose, even things they EXPLICITLY have been asking for, and this is the most concrete example yet.
To be perfectly honest, I don't know why you guys say that CNN is leftist or to the left. CNN panders to the left, but I'm willing to bet that it's board of directors is not left leaning. We're talking about a multi-million corporate giant here. Each year, CNN's ad revenue is in the millions. This is not a state-owned company operating in China, it's a private company operating in a capitalist country. It's a corporation that is 100% capitalist to the core. Allow me to repeat a platitude: the goal of a corporation is to make money. They pander to the left because that's their current business model, not because they believe in anything that the left believes. It would be the same as a restaurant owner who eats meat but opens a vegan restaurant in order to make money, not because he believes in what vegans believe.
If you look at donations by the richest people they're split exactly right down the middle in terms of right of and left leaning, with a couple oddballs like Bezos donating to one side or the other.
Edit: In modern political discourse there's a weird depersonifaction of rich people, they're just people and they can have whatever political opinions. Sure there are trends, but it's like 60-40 trends not like 99-1 trends.
I just read a really, really disheartening article about an attempt to combat racist bullying in a wealthy Texas community's schools. Majority white, strongly conservative, and extremely high income, Southlake is home to a small Black population, and in late 2018, when a video of Southlake kids chanting the N-word went viral, officials and concerned citizens tried to set up a plan to combat racism in the local schools. Black students stood up and recited a long list of vicious acts of bullying they'd experienced for their skin color, all while the school did nothing to protect them. Finally, folks were trying to expose it and fight it.
The backlash was swift and brutal. Not only did outraged folks protest the move; they raised over $100,000 to prevent the plan from being implemented in court. The dispute even drew the attention of state GOP officials, who made it a political issue:
Allen West, the Texas GOP chairman, addressed the dispute in August when he was invited to speak at a church near the city. In a video of the speech posted to YouTube, West told the audience that the situation in Southlake follows a pattern of school districts attempting to indoctrinate children with liberal values.
West, who is Black, then offered a suggestion for how to fight back. He told the audience to welcome new residents from out of state with a pecan pie, but then to ask, “Now why are you here?”
And if those new neighbors don't share traditional conservative beliefs about gun rights and tax policy, West advised the audience to respond with seven words: “Go back to where you came from.”
...
West ended his remarks by urging the crowd to continue the fight to “run these progressive socialists the hell out of Texas,” and was again given a standing ovation. [emphasis mine]
It's distressing that fighting racist bullying against children is somehow being treated as some evil liberal thing instead of a basic civic responsibility.
Wrong. Most regulations are completely nonsensical. 109 laws for a pillow
If there were 109 regulations that might be a problem - but there aren't. The figure was compiled by searching the EU legal database for anything that included the term "pillow". That includes for instance a review (not a regulation) of a merger between two auto-part companies - which happens to reference "pillow ball joints".
This article gives a bit more explanation of the process used to arrive at the figures in the film.
Folks on the internet are about to bankrupt a hedge fund and it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen an organized group of internet users accomplish.
@WarChiefZeke How are they doing this exactly? What's the mechanism? Is this the goal or a side effect of some other motive?
Get rich quick scheme from the look of it. Might work for some folks if they get out in time...
Edit: Also it appears that hedge fund(s) bet short on Game Spot stocks and the large amount of buying has driven up the stock value so much that the hedge fund(s) are losing their shirts. Kinda ironic in a way. Now it's a game of chicken between the stock holders who hold wildly overvalued stock, and the hedge funds who are refusing to budge on their short position. Billions of dollars are at stake. I've said on this very forum many times that the stock market is like a casino. Here's some real-time proof!
@WarChiefZeke How are they doing this exactly? What's the mechanism? Is this the goal or a side effect of some other motive?
Finances aren't my strong point, so I can't claim to understand all the mechanisms at play, but this much I know. The more Gamestop stock goes up, the more the hedge fund Melvin Capital loses money. To the tune of something like a billion dollars for every 12$ increase in stock price.
Their motives are almost entirely political, these companies play games with our futures and get bailed by the government when they fail. I would say I agree with their motives.
@WarChiefZeke How are they doing this exactly? What's the mechanism? Is this the goal or a side effect of some other motive?
Finances aren't my strong point, so I can't claim to understand all the mechanisms at play, but this much I know. The more Gamestop stock goes up, the more the hedge fund Melvin Capital loses money. To the tune of something like a billion dollars for every 12$ increase in stock price.
Their motives are almost entirely political, these companies play games with our futures and get bailed by the government when they fail. I would say I agree with their motives.
That letter is too much troll, not enough substance. I like it, and agree with it, but anyone with an ounce of power are going to zero in on the last lines of the last two paragraphs and know the writer is someone who shouldn't be taken seriously and it will be legislated out of existence, putting more of a screw to the average person.
The average person isn't going to care who comes out on top of this fight, making the one with the most money to pay off politicians win. I honestly think this reddit thread should reach out to a PR firm to craft their messages for them in the future.
Yeah, it's definitely not top-tier public relations by any means. However, I don't think any amount of finely-crafted letters would stop the government from erring on the side of the financial institutions. Like we saw with the bailouts, very few in government are willing to regulate the banks and hedge funds. They'd much rather make it so average people can't participate.
Stop hurting rich people's bank accounts! Our looting of the country shouldn't be political!
I shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I am but the schadenfreude is real.
"I don't feel safe" says the hedge fund manager who can afford a posse of armed guards around him 24/7. I am beyond tired of the vague suggestion of "anonymous internet threats" being used to turn people who are not victims into victims. I have no sympathy for them because they are losing money to ordinary people.
It can't be more obvious how these media outlets act as nothing more than the mouthpieces of the powerful in society.
Melvin Capital closes out at an unnamed loss, and of course gets billions from Citadel to try to keep it afloat. "They didn't put them out of business, but boy did they come close"
Stop hurting rich people's bank accounts! Our looting of the country shouldn't be political!
I shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I am but the schadenfreude is real.
"I don't feel safe" says the hedge fund manager who can afford a posse of armed guards around him 24/7. I am beyond tired of the vague suggestion of "anonymous internet threats" being used to turn people who are not victims into victims. I have no sympathy for them because they are losing money to ordinary people.
It can't be more obvious how these media outlets act as nothing more than the mouthpieces of the powerful in society.
Melvin Capital closes out at an unnamed loss, and of course gets billions from Citadel to try to keep it afloat. "They didn't put them out of business, but boy did they come close"
Cramer sees small investors ganging up online against Wall Street hedge funds as a new paradigm
The power of the internet is bringing individual investors together to crush Wall Street hedge funds that are short GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond and AMC Entertainment.
“It’s the ‘wallstreetbets’ people.′ And they have ganged up, arguably allowed by free speech purposes, to center on a few stocks,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday.
“This is the paradigm,” the “Mad Money” host declared.
This is really only working because it's in the wheelhouse of the very online. Everyone who follows video games knows Gamestop is running on fumes at this point, holding things together with glue and duck tape. The hedge fund was counting on this to short sell the stock. For this to become a regular thing, the Reddit thread is going to have to become aware of impending bankruptcies that are alot less evident than Gamestop, Bed, Bath and Beyond, and a movie theater chain during a pandemic.
Cramer sees small investors ganging up online against Wall Street hedge funds as a new paradigm
The power of the internet is bringing individual investors together to crush Wall Street hedge funds that are short GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond and AMC Entertainment.
“It’s the ‘wallstreetbets’ people.′ And they have ganged up, arguably allowed by free speech purposes, to center on a few stocks,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday.
“This is the paradigm,” the “Mad Money” host declared.
Well truthfully, this site is just a Boiler Room (another amazing movie) and you’ll see in this example in a day or two, that the average investor is still going to get hurt over this and lose their money.
I doubt this tactic will work again as the trolls realize that they are losing money at a higher rate than investors.
I maintain (like @Balrog99) that Wall Street money is entirely make-believe and we simply allow it to manifest itself into actual cash. None of this is real. Society would be better off without the entire operation. Yet we measure our economic "strength" on how well the markets are doing on any given day.
I maintain (like @Balrog99) that Wall Street money is entirely make-believe and we simply allow it to manifest itself into actual cash. None of this is real. Society would be better off without the entire operation. Yet we measure our economic "strength" on how well the markets are doing on any given day.
Well truthfully all money is make believe. It gets set a value because society says it should be that value and they are willing to trade tangible goods or services for it.
I maintain (like @Balrog99) that Wall Street money is entirely make-believe and we simply allow it to manifest itself into actual cash. None of this is real. Society would be better off without the entire operation. Yet we measure our economic "strength" on how well the markets are doing on any given day.
It works for it's intended purpose (helping to capitalize start-ups and small businesses) so I'm not sure getting rid of the market entirely is a good idea. There are going to be people who abuse it for their own gain, but that doesn't make it 'evil' or 'worthless'...
Edit: Upon re-reading my post, I don't mean that the purpose of the market is solely to help start-ups and small businesses. It also helps large corporations raise capital for their ventures as well...
I read a little bit about this last night, but I had no idea it almost bankrupted a hedge fund. That's pretty glorious.
I too am curious if this is something that will now happen some with regularity, or if this will only really work once. There are going to be a lot of market forces pushing back.
Fun fact: the derivatives market alone is currently estimated at one quadrillion dollars. That's around 10 times the world gross product, give or take, depending on who you ask.
Fun fact: the derivatives market alone is currently estimated at one quadrillion dollars. That's around 10 times the world gross product, give or take, depending on who you ask.
A quadrillion is $1000 trillion. That doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility to me.
I maintain (like @Balrog99) that Wall Street money is entirely make-believe and we simply allow it to manifest itself into actual cash. None of this is real. Society would be better off without the entire operation. Yet we measure our economic "strength" on how well the markets are doing on any given day.
It works for it's intended purpose (helping to capitalize start-ups and small businesses) so I'm not sure getting rid of the market entirely is a good idea. There are going to be people who abuse it for their own gain, but that doesn't make it 'evil' or 'worthless'...
Edit: Upon re-reading my post, I don't mean that the purpose of the market is solely to help start-ups and small businesses. It also helps large corporations raise capital for their ventures as well...
There are essentially two markets though. The primary market sells new stock and performs a useful economic function. However, that's incredibly small compared to the secondary market that deals in existing stock - and has very little useful function. At the margins there are arguably very small benefits, such as providing a mechanism to publicize when a company is in trouble to prevent potential suppliers getting caught out. Essentially though it's just intended as a way to increase the liquidity of investments.
In the early stages of developing capitalism improving liquidity can be important to make the best use of resources, but we're way past that point. I think problems with the markets now are far more associated with too much liquidity than too little. Things like short selling and derivatives are just a way of gearing up gambling on the markets. That always looks attractive when you're the one aiming to manipulate the market, but rather less so when someone else is doing the manipulating. If this sort of action helps make those looking to short stocks think twice, then that's all to the good .
This does not fit any standard definition of market manipulation, so I have no idea how they can possibly get away with calling foul on this. They are not spreading misinformation about Gamestop, they are not "fluffing" the trading market by engaging in a series of microtrades, they are just encouraging other people to buy Gamestop stock for ideological reasons. As far as any legal definition of market manipulation goes, this doesn't fit it.
Comments
Well, as trivial as the analogy might be, if a vegan restaurant owner opens a vegan restaurant in order to make money, there's no hypocrisy there: making money and being vegan are not mutually exclusive. He's not cynically pandering to his customers, because he himself is vegan. If, on the other hand, he eats meat and opens a vegan restaurant, that's different.
If Fox News leans to the right, and it's target audience are right wingers, then there's no hypocrisy or cynicism there. If someone defends capitalism, that makes them a right winger as far as I'm concerned. There's no such thing as left-wing capitalism. So if you're a capitalist corporation intent on making money, and you lean to the right, and your target audience are right wingers, you're not pandering to them, because you believe in the same thing that they do. If, on the other hand, you're a corporation intent on making money, but your target audience are left wingers, then there's a contradiction there, and that does qualify as pandering. Look at it this way: how much money does CNN donate to non-profit organizations dedicated to progressive causes? Probably a couple of dimes or nickles, compared to the revenue that they make each year. CNN can talk about progressive causes all day, but if they don't actually put their money where their mouth is, then they're just being cynical. Of course, someone may accuse me of the same and ask me to donate a ton of money, but here's the thing: I'm just an individual with a measly income, I'm not a gigantic corporation with an ad revenue in the millions.
As for the Press Briefing, the fact that they are happening AT ALL on a daily basis would be cause for celebration from any news outlet. The podium literally had dust on it because it hadn't been used in god knows how long.
As for FOX, yes, everyone knows what they are, but it's BS they sell themselves or have every admitted to being a right-wing network. The tagline from their inception (which I was there for) was "Fair and Balanced" and the whole point of adding the "News" portion was to convince people watching GOP TV was legitimate, down the middle reporting. And that is still the dynamic to this day. It has never changed. It's why they still employ people like Brett Baier and Chris Wallace for plausible deniability. The fact that everyone sees through does not mean the organization itself is open and honest about what it is. It hasn't been that way from the moment they went on the air, and it isn't now.
Furthermore, now that OAN and Newsmax are easily available through any free streaming service, they are going to have to go even further into the fever swamp than they have up to this point, and, frankly, I don't even know what that means anymore. At a certain point, you max out your stats on crazy. There are no tomes that can raise it above a certain level.
Being scared if a Trump tweet is no longer an excuse. It means the exact thing many of us have been arguing. It's an authoritarian party comprised of mostly authoritarians, who I believe would STILL be voting this way even if Mike Pence's head had ended up on a pike.
Capitalism and socialism is a spectrum. If the state dictate who I hire, in which therms, for how long time, etc and regulate every detail about how I operate my business, I an really the "proprietary of the means of production?" 100% state control over the means of production is impossible. Even in North Korea, you have black markets and one year after the end of USSR, there was hundreds of Russian missionaries.
Under close to 100% socialism, everyone suffers EXCEPT the party and those who are strongly tied to the party.
That said, more state control can benefit big corporations at the expense of smaller business.
The gaming industry is not that regulated, but imagine if to sell a game, you need to "get approval" in a regulatory agency, submit 666 different types of documentations, had hundreds of regulatory determinations saying what a game can and cannot do. A indie dev could't do that. Bug a EA/M$/etc could and heavily regulating the gaming market would lead inevitably to few giant companies.
Apply that logic with every other sector. Security, defense, healthcare...
A video game can't cause physical harm or death if it is shipped in a defective state.
No one is sitting around writing regulations out of spite for business owners. Regulations are put in place to minimize the risk of harm against actual human beings. Yes, this comes at the expense of money and profit to one degree or another.
Wrong. Most regulations are completely nonsensical. 109 laws for a pillow
And this not talking about forced diversity hiring, the tons of hours dedicated only to pay taxes due the fact that the tax system is over complicated. My uncle owned a nightclub. He got in trouble many times due fiscals and nonsensical regulations.
Remember spicer and his "biggest inauguration crowd ever" lie? It was only downhill with the truth from there.
It is a refreshing change that that is no longer going to be the case and you no longer have to deal with name calling silly gaslighting liars. Biden's team might lie, but at least they won't insult you while doing it.
First off, NO minimum wage increase is just going to take effect in total one morning. That is never how it works, it is always gradual. And secondly, now I'm supposed to believe the ask hasn't been $15.00 for all this time and is now supposed to be $25.00?? Since when, six hours ago?? There is a large section of online leftist media whose only purpose is to snipe at Democrats no matter what they propose, even things they EXPLICITLY have been asking for, and this is the most concrete example yet.
If you look at donations by the richest people they're split exactly right down the middle in terms of right of and left leaning, with a couple oddballs like Bezos donating to one side or the other.
Edit: In modern political discourse there's a weird depersonifaction of rich people, they're just people and they can have whatever political opinions. Sure there are trends, but it's like 60-40 trends not like 99-1 trends.
The backlash was swift and brutal. Not only did outraged folks protest the move; they raised over $100,000 to prevent the plan from being implemented in court. The dispute even drew the attention of state GOP officials, who made it a political issue: It's distressing that fighting racist bullying against children is somehow being treated as some evil liberal thing instead of a basic civic responsibility.
If there were 109 regulations that might be a problem - but there aren't. The figure was compiled by searching the EU legal database for anything that included the term "pillow". That includes for instance a review (not a regulation) of a merger between two auto-part companies - which happens to reference "pillow ball joints".
This article gives a bit more explanation of the process used to arrive at the figures in the film.
Get rich quick scheme from the look of it. Might work for some folks if they get out in time...
Edit: Also it appears that hedge fund(s) bet short on Game Spot stocks and the large amount of buying has driven up the stock value so much that the hedge fund(s) are losing their shirts. Kinda ironic in a way. Now it's a game of chicken between the stock holders who hold wildly overvalued stock, and the hedge funds who are refusing to budge on their short position. Billions of dollars are at stake. I've said on this very forum many times that the stock market is like a casino. Here's some real-time proof!
Finances aren't my strong point, so I can't claim to understand all the mechanisms at play, but this much I know. The more Gamestop stock goes up, the more the hedge fund Melvin Capital loses money. To the tune of something like a billion dollars for every 12$ increase in stock price.
Their motives are almost entirely political, these companies play games with our futures and get bailed by the government when they fail. I would say I agree with their motives.
That letter is too much troll, not enough substance. I like it, and agree with it, but anyone with an ounce of power are going to zero in on the last lines of the last two paragraphs and know the writer is someone who shouldn't be taken seriously and it will be legislated out of existence, putting more of a screw to the average person.
The average person isn't going to care who comes out on top of this fight, making the one with the most money to pay off politicians win. I honestly think this reddit thread should reach out to a PR firm to craft their messages for them in the future.
I shouldn't be enjoying this as much as I am but the schadenfreude is real.
"I don't feel safe" says the hedge fund manager who can afford a posse of armed guards around him 24/7. I am beyond tired of the vague suggestion of "anonymous internet threats" being used to turn people who are not victims into victims. I have no sympathy for them because they are losing money to ordinary people.
It can't be more obvious how these media outlets act as nothing more than the mouthpieces of the powerful in society.
Melvin Capital closes out at an unnamed loss, and of course gets billions from Citadel to try to keep it afloat. "They didn't put them out of business, but boy did they come close"
As long as it’s not tax payers money.
And now I follow what is happening. Melvin Capital was betting that Game Stop would go bankrupt and would capitalize on that bankruptcy.
If you ever watched the amazing movie, the Big Short, it explains it better than I ever could.
Cramer sees small investors ganging up online against Wall Street hedge funds as a new paradigm
The power of the internet is bringing individual investors together to crush Wall Street hedge funds that are short GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond and AMC Entertainment.
“It’s the ‘wallstreetbets’ people.′ And they have ganged up, arguably allowed by free speech purposes, to center on a few stocks,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday.
“This is the paradigm,” the “Mad Money” host declared.
Well truthfully, this site is just a Boiler Room (another amazing movie) and you’ll see in this example in a day or two, that the average investor is still going to get hurt over this and lose their money.
I doubt this tactic will work again as the trolls realize that they are losing money at a higher rate than investors.
Well truthfully all money is make believe. It gets set a value because society says it should be that value and they are willing to trade tangible goods or services for it.
It works for it's intended purpose (helping to capitalize start-ups and small businesses) so I'm not sure getting rid of the market entirely is a good idea. There are going to be people who abuse it for their own gain, but that doesn't make it 'evil' or 'worthless'...
Edit: Upon re-reading my post, I don't mean that the purpose of the market is solely to help start-ups and small businesses. It also helps large corporations raise capital for their ventures as well...
I too am curious if this is something that will now happen some with regularity, or if this will only really work once. There are going to be a lot of market forces pushing back.
A quadrillion is $1000 trillion. That doesn't sound out of the realm of possibility to me.
There are essentially two markets though. The primary market sells new stock and performs a useful economic function. However, that's incredibly small compared to the secondary market that deals in existing stock - and has very little useful function. At the margins there are arguably very small benefits, such as providing a mechanism to publicize when a company is in trouble to prevent potential suppliers getting caught out. Essentially though it's just intended as a way to increase the liquidity of investments.
In the early stages of developing capitalism improving liquidity can be important to make the best use of resources, but we're way past that point. I think problems with the markets now are far more associated with too much liquidity than too little. Things like short selling and derivatives are just a way of gearing up gambling on the markets. That always looks attractive when you're the one aiming to manipulate the market, but rather less so when someone else is doing the manipulating. If this sort of action helps make those looking to short stocks think twice, then that's all to the good
State regulators already calling for trading to be shut down: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3655033-gamestop-trading-should-be-stopped-for-30-days-state-regulator-says
This does not fit any standard definition of market manipulation, so I have no idea how they can possibly get away with calling foul on this. They are not spreading misinformation about Gamestop, they are not "fluffing" the trading market by engaging in a series of microtrades, they are just encouraging other people to buy Gamestop stock for ideological reasons. As far as any legal definition of market manipulation goes, this doesn't fit it.