The GameStop plot thickens
Wow, just wow. Could this be true?:
Now comes news that Robinhood went further than just freezing trades on GameStop; They have allegedly begun force-selling investors’ shares. On Twitter, investors began sharing their stories of being notified that their shares of GameStop were being sold without their direction or permission, presumably as a result of Wall Street’s complaints that the actions from Robinhood investors was causing the problem for the market and more traditional investors.
Also, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with ordinary calls of stock bought on margin.
You think that’s bad? Try this on for size:
Additionally, a person claiming to be a Robinhood employee stated on Reddit that the directions to close trading came from Wall Street and the Biden White House.
True? Untrue? Only the Shadow knows. It’s certainly believable, however.
A lawsuit has already been filed against Robinhood:
As a result of Robinhood’s actions, a class actions lawsuit was filed in New York against the investor app, claiming that Robinhood’s actions denied these retail investors of access to the open market.
News on this is breaking very fast. The situation is still murky, though.
I only have a superficial knowledge of this kerfuffle and as far as I know little interest. But, can anyone explain why on earth the White House might be involved?
I do get the feeling that Robinhood is not a nice crowd and whether intentionally, or not, entices lots of novice, read naive, traders to play with gambits that are well beyond the competence of the average investor.
My visceral reaction to the names of the founders would be enough to send warning signals into my prejudiced brain. If I were writing a novel about Ukrainian or Russian money manipulators could I do better?
Oldflyer,
If you were a fan of Science Fiction, one way I might answer your question would be to say: It shows a crack in the Matrix. I don’t know if you are a fan though so I might be a longer explanation.
Beyond people just making money by playing the game better than the people who rigged it (“Hey you cheated! That’s my job!”), when something like this happens, it reveals the cracks and weakness in “The Matrix”. That is, the illusion or fictions, if you will, that people labor under every day:
-Save money (Let banks use your money)
-Take out a student loan (Put yourself into indentured servitude)
-Go to college (Get indoctrinated)
-Get a house (Take out a mortgage and tighten those chains)
-Put your money into a 401K/IRA (Give your money to people who know better than you how to manage it so they get rich, even when you don’t)
-Retire and live comfortably (Maybe…)
And advanced version might be:
-Learn to invest, make some extra money (Come give us more money at the Casino where the house has everything rigged)
The past few years have taught us that this path is, for all intents and purposes, a way to corral people, to channel them. Enslave them even, with chains of silver. There is a Big Cub, as George Carlin once put it, and you ain’t in it. The people in the Big Club, which is still quite small, need a way to control the people who *aren’t* in the club. Following the steps I mentioned earlier keep people in line, in their lane as it were. It also allows them to feed off the work and savings of people like vampires. This Game Stop stuff is showing a large percentage of people just how rigged the system actually is. Much like the recent election showed people how rigged *that* system is.
The powers that be cannot allow people to learn just how much of a ‘fiction’ the entire construct is. And because it’s a fiction, just how fragile that fiction is. So, of course, the White House got involved.
The cracks are starting to show and people in power are panicking.
Fractal Rabbit, I sure hope you’re right about the last sentence of your comment.
Interestingly, my oldest son, about whom I’ve written before (35, English Professor, super progressive) totally agrees that this Game Stop thing is bad news and shows how the powerful keep the little guy down and clueless.
Kind of like AOC and Ted Cruz agreeing.
If they’re selling assets without the owner’s consent, they’ve got a major liability problem. More lawsuits!
As to why the White House might be involved, my impression is that hedge fund managers have strong connections to the elite powers that be, including being major donors to progressive causes and candidates.
When you sell my stuff without my permission, there’s a word for that: theft.
On the scale we’re discussing, there are two words: grand larceny.
My laymen’s guess is that Robinhood’s co-operation with this scam was extorted by actors who can in effect shut the service down (are they hosted by Amazon?). This sort of misconduct toward their customers should destroy their business, so there had to be some sort of force majeure employed wherein they risked an 80% chance of destruction in lieu of a 95% chance. Just guessing.
IMO, sensible people have nothing to do with hedge funds, unless they’ve got a huge wad and want to risk a modest fraction of it on these operators. One veteran investment counselor of my acquaintance (now retired) told me some years ago that (1) they are heavily leveraged (‘ratios up to 40 to 1’) and that (2) ‘most of these guys use similar strategies; so when it starts to go bad for them, it goes bad quickly for all of them’.
Yacht futures in Rhode Island and Connecticut look bleak in the near term.
Only the shadow knows.
Likely what happened is that Robinhood’s shares were being “borrowed” by the brokerages that were losing billions. Then some kind of error happened and they had to transfer the actual stocks, which still takes 3 days to settle.
I shifted to Webull months ago. Robinhood can’t even short stocks. They are easy to use for crypto trades though.
The cracks are starting to show and people in power are panicking.
I Love it. I really do. Apparently 2021 officially starts in the spring.
Good thought, Art Deco, about hosting.
If some major hedge fund people lose their shirts over this, I will not cry. Essentially, they play the market like a casino, with enough money to sway it. They add no value to anyone but their own pockets. And if some of the losers are major Democrat donors, I’ll be even more pleased.
gwynmir,
“Fractal Rabbit, I sure hope you’re right about the last sentence of your comment.”
Be careful what you wish for! We don’t know what might step into the vacuum such a situation might create.
Thinking about your son, the more nationalist I get, and the more my Christian faith asserts itself, the more I find myself in a position where I find some people saying things I can at least understand, if not agree with, when I couldn’t have done that before. AOC’s vitriol and lies directed at Ted Cruz notwithstanding, she’s not wrong about her Game Stop comments. IMHO, anyway.
Vice versa, I’ve spent less and less time reading Glenn Reynolds and the crew at Instapundit. Except Sarah Hoyt, who I never really ‘got’. I find myself reading her and ‘getting’ her thoughts more than I did before.
Hedge fund managers learn to code? There are great jobs as solar panel technicians too, always wear your fall protection.
Ok. From what I have read, I would not think of this Robinhood crowd as the “Big guys” in the sense of being “Really Big Guys. It seems like their schtick was more in the way of pulling in, and eventually preying on the young novices, then they got too big for their britches and thought they could control events. They got bit by the Twitter, Amazon, Google bug.
Fractual Rabbit, I do not dispute much of what you say, although I do question the darkness of the painting you present.
Despite obvious flaws, they system has allowed the little people–me for instance– to get into the game. This option was not available to my father for instance. I recognize that like every other system, it is rigged to favor the big players, still I have benefited over the past forty years. Now I can be fairly confident that my widow will enjoy financial security, independent of the government. That is definitely an improvement over the past, and over many current systems.
It is still not clear to me why the White House would be particularly interested in this particular spat. There are certainly enough regulatory agencies eager to weigh in if there is a systemic or endemic problem (I love to use those words) –or simply to punish anyone who fires their ire.
Good one om.
I think Robinhood is likely in legal trouble over halting share buying but not selling. This thing with forced selling though, I’m not so sure. If it was really a cash account only position, it would seem to be an incredibly legally reckless action.
Here’s what I found on Robinhood.com.
So “Gold” is the full featured account and you only need $2K to qualify. Oh yeah, Gold is the margin account. The whole vibe of the Robinhood help and info. web pages is “It’s so easy. Don’t worry about the details.”
A $2K requirement is orders of magnitude lower than when I was first exploring this stuff. I’ll bet more than a few investors don’t realize their account is marginable or what that means.
Point72 Asset Management together with Citadel invested a combined $2.75 billion into Melvin Capital (which shorted GameStop) Citadel also executes trade orders on behalf of Robinhood.
Citadel’s deal with Robinhood, which has it paying the app to execute user trades, has long led to concerns on Wall Street that this gives the hedge fund part of the business special insight into the market — something Citadel has long denied.
The company on Thursday insisted that it keeps its market-making securities business and hedge fund trading business separate — and said it had nothing to do with Robinhood’s trading restrictions, which sent shares of GameStop down 44 percent.
Cut and pasted from the New York Post.
We have seen this “liquidation only” movie before.
https://thenewamerican.com/w-herbert-hunt-on-the-great-silver-swindle/
Throughout the fall of 1979, the price of silver continued to rise despite the increasingly higher margin requirements imposed by the exchanges. In my view, it does not take a sophisticated market analyst to determine the effect of these higher margin and positive limit requirements.
First, access to the silver futures market by the average investor or speculator was denied by the high margin requirements. The result: There were no small buyers. Second, the position limits required large traders to dispose of their contracts. The natural result of these artificial factors was to drive the price of silver down. Mine was the distressful economic situation of being compelled to be a seller without buyers.
The exchanges finally broke the silver market on January 21 and 22, 1980. On the 21st, Comex limited trading to liquidation only. The decline in the price of silver continued until late March 1980. This rapid decline was the inevitable result of the actions taken by the exchanges.
Oldflyer said,
“Fractual Rabbit, I do not dispute much of what you say, although I do question the darkness of the painting you present.”
I don’t think it’s necessarily *that* dark. It just is.
“Despite obvious flaws, they system has allowed the little people–me for instance– to get into the game. This option was not available to my father for instance. I recognize that like every other system, it is rigged to favor the big players, still I have benefited over the past forty years. Now I can be fairly confident that my widow will enjoy financial security, independent of the government. That is definitely an improvement over the past, and over many current systems.”
I think it was definitely an improvement in some fashion. But real freedom was traded for security or the illusion of security. And the people who worked under that system when it really took hold benefited much more from the perceived security of it. I think it’s possible that it was a net good for a time. I don’t think its a net good any longer and probably hasn’t been for a while.
But now look at the much maligned Millennial generation. Whatever their faults, (and they are many) they don’t have it nearly as good as Generation X did (my generation). And Generation X didn’t have it as good as the the Baby Boomer generation. It took a very long time for my parents and grandparents to internalize that college wasn’t as affordable and as good an investment as it was when they were younger. That’s just one example.
Several people have commented on Robinhood receiving money for routing orders to Citadel. This practise of paying for order flow has been going on for a long time. What Robinhood did that was different is that it stopped charging a commission. Before the brokers were charging customers to place orders and then getting paid from market markers for routing orders to them.
Several brokers now give you the option to trade for “free”. Some brokers give you an option where you pay commission and your order is routed for best execution, or you pay no commission and the brokers routes the order to market maker of their choice.
The company on Thursday insisted that it keeps its market-making securities business and hedge fund trading business separate — and said it had nothing to do with Robinhood’s trading restrictions, which sent shares of GameStop down 44 percent.
I think Yves Smith was beating the drums a dozen years ago for regulatory changes which would require functions be segregated and require securities firms to divest of certain lines of business. Just as a layman, it seems to me that if regulatory compliance requires a ‘chinese wall’ down the middle of your business, the regulatory regime should just go the distance and say you can be in one business or another, not both. Separate securities underwriting from proprietary trading from retail brokerage from prime brokerage from treasury services from private equity from investment funds.
But now look at the much maligned Millennial generation. Whatever their faults, (and they are many) they don’t have it nearly as good as Generation X did (my generation). And Generation X didn’t have it as good as the the Baby Boomer generation.
In the social-psychological sphere, not the material sphere.
If Robinhood is selling shares, that are not on margin, on its own accord it is in trouble. That said this could actually save some of these investors, at some point the shorts are covered and the music stops, whoever owns those shares at any price above a few bucks a share is in for a rude awakening
Maybe it’s a complete coincidence that Janet Yellen was paid $810,000 in fees to speak a few times at Citadel Capital, which is heavily invested in Melvin Capital, which is currently going under with GameStop short-selling positions. Maybe small exclusive clubs like this only have so many experts to turn to, when filling speaking gigs for insider briefings. She is said to be ‘monitoring the situation’. I guess we won’t know if this includes interactions with the White House to discuss strategies and actions.
Robinhood has a bit of a checkered past, they have been previously caught selling their customer’s data to – get this – Citadel Capital, among others. What interesting times we live in. Maybe Robinhood should change their name to Nottingham Securities Services.
Here’s an article about Robinhood being under investigation (Sept. 2, 2020) for selling user’s trading info. to Citadel.
There are so many stories associated with this gaming company short squeeze. I don’t have a link handy, but purportedly Discord shut down the r/WallStreetBets forum because of hate speech. Statements such as “f-bomb hedge fund XYZ” were acceptable until they weren’t. Discord was protecting folks’ safety.(sarc) It is just a coincidence that this happened at the same moment that hedge fund XYZ almost went broke.
From CNBC, Vlad Tenev CEO of Robinhood today said:
For what it is worth.
My experience with margin accounts is that every position you hold in a margin account is marginable as well as borrowable for short selling, without being informed otherwise, unless you jump through hoops to make a position in that account non-marginable.
Tommy Jay
From Ace.mu.nu
January 28, 2021
Quarantine Cafe: HOLD THE LINE! Edition
—Ace
“Nice Tweets!
@DonaldJTrumpJr
Hedge funders should really just “Learn To Code” or to “install solar panels”
Am I doing this right??? I’m told those are the rules.”
I didn’t see the timestamp of DonaldJTrumpJr’s tweet, he has a sense of humor too, it appears …..
Maybe making money from buying GameStop shares is secondary. Taking down all of these hedge funds may be the primary goal. And it’s on a global scale.
“can anyone explain why on earth the White House might be involved?” Oldflyer
Political power protects the economic powers that fund it.
Politically and economically, the elite have rotted out the country nearly to its core. Xiden’s strangulation of the energy sector begins the collapse of the economy and the Uni-Party’s limitless raising of US indebtedness will finish the job.
But the Great Reset will ride to humanity’s rescue.
Didn’t read the story but the headline read “Google deletes 100,000 negative reviews of robinhood from their App Store.”
Well. OK, then.
The cracks are starting to show and people in power are panicking.
FractalRabbit:
My question is how much of what we are seeing is desperation and how much is justified arrogance.
Trump proved the elites were vulnerable. Their tried-and-true plan of frog-boiling us into submission was endangered. They had to pick up the pace, even if it made their naked will to power obvious to millions.
And lo! it’s working better than I would have thought.
I don’t know whether it’s social media, Covid, the age turn-over, the Long March through the Institutions or some unholy combo of those and more, but it’s working. They could sweep the pool table and keep it swept — for a few generations anyway.
New ball game.
om,
I missed the “continue reading” at Ace previously. I love the Outsider Trading epithet for Redditors “colluding” with each other. Stock trading clubs are OK, but social media trading collusion is like doing Vladimir Putin’s bidding! (Or something, … never mind.)
______
Then there is this at Ace.
Now this is just me, and it is or used to be a free country, but … When you score a 5X or 10X trading gain in just a few days, TAKE THE FLIPPIN’ MONEY!
Hedge fund XYZ may not be broke today, but they are still in a world of hurt and may disappear in the future, and I’d hope that they and others have learned a lesson. The people who were never in danger and probably haven’t learned a lesson are the giant investment banks and their captured regulators (the SEC, FTC) who enable trading in fictitious shares.
The real collusion is between hedge funds, their giant brokerages, the SEC/FTC, and the politicians they
buyfund.So it seems that the short sellers need more than 100% of the shares that exist to buy their float back. This is why Robinhood is risking fines, lawsuits, prison and selling shares. They’re worried about the integrity of the market – not the GameStop market but the stock market as a whole. And when I say worried about the market as a whole I mean their cushy lifestyle not about us.
JimNorCal,
Are you a hayseed Jim? I’ve used your closing line a hundred times around my house.
This social media manipulation and censorship is completely out of control.
One of the most riveting film scenes in the past ten years was from “Margin Call” about the 2008 market collapse. Jeremy Irons plays John Tuld, the CEO of a big Wall Street firm, not unlike Goldman Sachs, who decides on a fateful night to sell off the firm’s toxic mortgage-backed securities before anyone else does, thereby starting the fire that spread around the globe.
_________________________________________
John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I’m in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.
Peter Sullivan : Yes.
John Tuld : I’m here for one reason and one reason alone. I’m here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That’s it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I’m afraid that I don’t hear – a – thing. Just… silence.
–“Margin Call” (2001)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=366DExfdQWM
_________________________________________
Excellent film and well-worth watching these days. If nothing else, we know why Jeremy Irons earns the big bucks. Incredible performance.
If the sale of investors’ shares without permission is true, we are into 1929 crash territory – in several cases, even investors whose shares were not margined were ‘borrowed’ -stolen- by brokers-dealers to meet their own margin calls…. some went to jail, some committed suicide, but the investors were out in the cold: they had a perfectly valid claim against perfectly judgment proof debtors….
People will and should go to jail over this. Definite market manipulation! Even if any of the actors slip the noose tightening around their necks … who would ever trade with them again?
They are all done … Robinhood and the hedge fund managers involved.
If the sale of investors’ shares without permission is true, we are into 1929 crash territory
CatoRenasci:
As an example, GameStop is a bit forced, but I would agree that today’s market is more than a bit overvalued and risky.
An economic crisis looks like the real wild card for the Biden administration. I don’t believe the Biden people can restore the Trump economy without the Trump.
Democrats may be swell at gaming the political system, but other than “Apres moi, le deluge!”, they don’t seem to have an economic plan beyond printing as much money as they can and funneling it to their cronies and favored constituencies.
Hopefully Nancy Pelosi gets snared in this whole mess.
https://money.yahoo.com/nancy-pelosi-buys-tesla-calls-191017279.html
Wow.
I find myself in close agreement with Geoffrey Britain (above).
And this endorsement by Fractal Rabbit of “…Sarah Hoyt, who I never really ‘got’. I find myself reading her and ‘getting’ her thoughts more than I did before.”
She’s sharp and she’s nobody’s fool when it comes to the Left. She was raised under fascism of the old type, then educated under fascism of the Left (Marxism) before emigrating from Portugal to the US.
She’s nobody’s fool.
Now does this mean the Ruling Class is threatened by exposure of the games their playing? And the fear blowback?
That’s one inference from the apparent alarm.
As an example, GameStop is a bit forced, but I would agree that today’s market is more than a bit overvalued and risky.
Overvalued 2x. The excess accounts for the last 7 years worth of gains in share prices. The Index of Leading Indicators is in positive territory, so corporate earnings may improve and make current valuations less bubblicious. It appears that the rate at which corporate earnings were being generated in 2020 q3 was about equal to that of 2019 q4 (having fallen by about 16% during the two intervening quarters). Even taking that into account, share prices are still wretchedly overvalued.
During the dotcom boom I recall a market analyst who was asked why even professionals kept buying stocks in what looked like a bubble (and was).
The analyst shrugged and said, “The pigs are dancing.”
Huxley, “GameStop is a bit forced, but I would agree that today’s market is more than a bit overvalued and risky.”
I made the biggest part of my nut from October 1999 to January 2000. It was a market much like today. Tech was riding high. Value stocks were cheap – no one wanted them. Complete junk tech stocks were going up daily. It was exciting and risky. I thought I knew what I was doing, but looking back, it was mostly luck. I didn’t get off of the merry-go-round as soon as I should have. It left me not rich, but with enough of a nest egg to be comfortable at age 67. Had I then put it in a 20 year bond ladder, I would have been even better off, but I had no idea that rates would ever go to zero. 🙂
This drama is a warning flag to those with an eye on the exits. Tim Berners-Lee is working on a new model for the internet. If he’s successful, the business model of many tech stocks is going to become obsolete. Tech will then have to change again. Maybe for the better. Even if Berners-Lee doesn’t succeed, tech stocks are over valued.
Long term, the market has grown with the economy. The present administration is looking to rein in the economy. That’s not good.
Short term, it’s a casino. Don’t put too much on short term bets.
Whether this is an episode of what appears to be some illegal activities remains to be seen. New regulations? Probably. Will short sellers, even hedge funds, be more cautious? We can hope so. Should hedge funds be allowed? IMO, no, they serve no real purpose except to game the market.
TommyJay “Are you a hayseed, Jim?”
I’m blushing, thanks for the compliment! I’m not but I do love Traditional Americans.
“does this mean the Ruling Class is threatened by exposure of the games their playing? And the fear blowback?” TJ
I suspect not. The big boys generally have an escape hatch and a scapegoat preselected.
But if this spirals out of control and collapses a hugely overvalued market… it will throw a huge monkey wrench into the dems plans.
Add to that the wreckage of the energy industry and only one more factor is needed for a perfect economic storm.
I leave it to more knowledgeable heads to offer what that third factor might be…
I got up this morning thinking it would be a slow news day ….
I’m sure I haven’t read anything very different from everyone else (RedState, Townhall, PJM, etc. — I did like Stacy McCain’s take, and his commenters were a hoot) but here is a post specifically for Eva Marie.
“Maybe making money from buying GameStop shares is secondary. Taking down all of these hedge funds may be the primary goal. And it’s on a global scale.” – Eva Marie
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2021/01/28/why-the-reddit-wallstreetbets-gamestop-vs-hedge-funds-matters-to-me-n318249
The Open Letter by SSauronn is excruciatingly direct in its indictment.
And Neo is almost right on the other thread: Occupy Wall Street would be confused, if it had been anything other than astroturf political theater.
Professor Jacobson should get the final word.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/01/gamestop-politics-democrats-hubris-and-abusiveness-will-lead-to-their-own-short-squeeze/
“There’s some political equivalent here. I don’t know what it looks like yet, but there’s only so long the rapid destruction of jobs and the economy and political persecution can continue without the political equivalent of a short squeeze on Democrats.”
The liberal view of the economy is currently shaped by a belief in “modern monetary theory.“ Which basically appears to say that we’re hung up on archaic good standard thinking, that it is impossible for a country with a sovereign fiat currency to go bankrupt. Stuff like taxes, debt and deficits are merely useful tools and irrelevant to paying trillions of dollars for things. Just print moar money.
If they really believe in a Magic Money Tree, why should they care about value, or the stock market crashing, or the currency imploding or the economy booming or busting, let alone jobs, people shivering in the dark or GameStop shenanigans? It’s unpossible, just print moar money.
Funnily enough, MMT was popularized on an internet blog.
Gee, I wonder if the theory may have any weaknesses that might be exploited?
Good post from Greenwald — and read on down to the long comment by Robert Marshall on how Wapo enacted their own internal “stop printing” order until they could get their spin organized. (h/t Powerline)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/video-the-reddit-revolution-gamestop-c69
The Redditors are fighting back – or at least Tweeting up a storm.
Let’s hear it for the Army of Davids!
https://notthebee.com/article/gamestop-closes-down-43-percent-after-the-suits-rig-the-game-retail-investors-vow-revenge
Read on down for the good news.
Your helpful on-line reference librarian:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Army_of_Davids
Exit question (to quote another prominent pundit): how many people on the Left even understand the meaning of the book’s title?
But some people aren’t happy that some people agree with them.
https://notthebee.com/article/how-insane-is-what-robinhood-did-to-gamestop-investors-don-jr-aoc-ted-cruz-rashida-tlaib-and-ben-shapiro-are-all-in-agreement-on-it
“The move by Robinhood was so egregiously crooked, that you wouldn’t even believe the following 5 tweets I’m about to show you, except that the headline already gave it away and that’s why you clicked through and are reading this article.”
Not surprisingly, here are the best explanations of the GameStop War.
https://babylonbee.com/news/the-bee-explains-what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-gamestop
https://babylonbee.com/news/wall-street-bans-anyone-who-doesnt-wear-a-top-hat-and-carry-around-giant-bags-of-money
https://babylonbee.com/news/bankrupted-hedge-fund-managers-to-receive-600-stimulus
https://babylonbee.com/news/merriam-webster-changes-definition-of-white-supremacist-to-anyone-who-wins-at-the-stock-market-when-theyre-not-supposed-to
Been surfing on GameStop… Loose talk from reddit? Oh my. Your mileage may vary.
* According to one person, only 65 million real shares of GameStop exist. However, Wall St somehow is buying/selling 72 million shares. Which makes the reddit play a shrewd move, more than a quixotic stick-it-to-the-man gesture.
* Some redditors see today’s heavy-handed moves as attempts to panic the GameStop players into selling. They believe that as long as they hold they will win when the shorts expire, because not enough shares exist to cover.
* Some even see the GameStop affair as a threat which could take down the whole market.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7bpf5/30_seconds_from_triggering_market_nuclear_bomb/
* Some of the GameStop holders vividly recall the 2008 meltdown and the suffering caused to their families then. Not to mention that the financial wheeler-dealers were let off and bailed-out. These GameStop people have scars … and grudges. Here’s one report:
_____________________________________________
Your ilk were bailed out and rewarded for terrible and illegal financial decisions that negatively changed the lives of millions. I bought shares a few days ago. I dumped my savings into GME, paid my rent for this month with my credit card, and dumped my rent money into more GME (which for the people here at WSB, I would not recommend). And I’m holding. This is personal for me, and millions of others. You can drop the price of GME after hours $120, I’m not going anywhere. You can pay for thousands of reddit bots, I’m holding. You can get every mainstream media outlet to demonize us, I don’t care. I’m making this as painful as I can for you.
–An Open Letter to Melvin Capital, CNBC, Boomers, and WSB
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6omry/an_open_letter_to_melvin_capital_cnbc_boomers_and/
“…and a scapegoat preselected.”
Indeed, and it should be absolutely clear just who THAT PERSON (and his supporters) will be.
This is personal for me, and millions of others. You can drop the price of GME after hours $120, I’m not going anywhere. You can pay for thousands of reddit bots, I’m holding. You can get every mainstream media outlet to demonize us, I don’t care. I’m making this as painful as I can for you.
Very well. Then the Divine Counsels have heard your plea, human, and we will provide support.
Stock is of this moment, back up to 400 pre market trading, which is above 300 last night when markets closed 8 pm (4pm is the regular hours close)
No wonder the entire stock market was blowing up the last few days. I was thinking Mercury going into retrograde was really messing with us, but it was Gamestop of all things.
Friday-Saturn 12:00 noon, is when the contracts expire. Gamestop probably has some contracts like that. That is when the “hit” really hurts. Shorts don’t expire, they just have an interest rate on them. If the price remains above 200-300 on Friday night 8 pm… the OPTIONS AND PUTS contracts will expire and be “executed”.
This execution will…. be interesting.
Shorts are related to options and puts because those 3 are all inter related in managing the stock market casino.
https://ymarsakar.wordpress.com/2021/01/11/now-that-the-world-is-ending/
My quantum financial reset post from j11th is relevant here. There are two resets going down, the New World Order reset (black in chess), and the quantum reset (blockchain, zero fraud, AI backed, stronger than crypto, no fiat currency, asset backed currencies via gold silver artifacts)
Which one you end up… well take a vote, the Divine Counsels are counting votes, not humans or dominions. Reddit has already voted after all.
“And this endorsement by Fractal Rabbit of “…Sarah Hoyt, who I never really ‘got’. I find myself reading her and ‘getting’ her thoughts more than I did before.””
I think she is making some progress.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2021/01/27/dare-to-be-petty-by-anonymous/
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2021/01/26/when-they-come-for-you/
I find her a bit ironic, given the posts she is approving or writing. My position was called crazy by her but now her posts are saying previous crazy positions are no longer crazy but mainstream.
Yes, that is the case.
Why is Civil War 2 inevitable? People should have asked me that in 2007 and after. Too late now.
This is an interesting take… although it may disappoint the conspirancy theorists:
There is a gap between the illusion of instantaneous online trading and the reality of the “financial clearinghouse” that is in place. RobinHood did not want to get caught holding the hot potato of covering these transactions until they clear.
Not sure if it’s the whole story but it is an interesting take – and if it’s true, it is a further push for bitcoin or other crypto/token-based trading methods, to replace the existing (and centralized) clearing-house settlement model. Since a mechanism for settling trades is a core part of the value, power, and prestige of a stock exchange, crypto trade settlement is understandably viewed as a challenge to existing financial powers that be.
https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1354911653582630915
We were within approximately 30 seconds of triggering a nuclear bomb that would have blown up the market. Do I have your attention? Here goes:
?Yesterday, new call option strike prices were added all the way up to $570. Do I have to go over gamma squeezes again? Really? We’ve been over this: when deep out-of-the-money call options start being gobbled up and the price starts moving towards being in-the-money, the call writers have to hedge their risk of having their sold calls exercised, typically by buying stock. This creates upwards pressure on the market. We’ve been seeing these movements all week.
?Yesterday after market, you probably saw that coordinated effort to drive the price down and spook retail investors into a mass sell-off. It didn’t work.
?Last night, Robinhood sent out a message to users: you could no longer enter into new options. You could exercise them if you had the collateral (money in the account) to do so. Very interesting and the first sign of pants-shitting fear.
?Today, the market opened very strong. It opened so strong that we were looking at a self-perpetuating gamma squeeze all the way up way past $570.
?At approximately 9:58 am, the stock had reached $468 in a parabolic move.
?Two minutes earlier, at 9:56 am, Robinhood tweeted that they were not allowing users to buy GME stock, but they would allow selling.
?The trend instantly halted and started a collapse downwards, before picking up a bit, especially after some retail was allowed back in.
Okay, now that you are clear on the facts, understand this: The market ran out of liquidity today, or was threatening to get close enough that they killed it. What does that mean? It means they ran out of shares and/or capital. They wouldn’t let you buy new shares because we were burning through all the shares on the market.
I saw an unsubstantiated post from a user (u/zshub) who said a market sell order executed at $2600 for him. Also, someone else for over $5,000 per share. Do you get the severity of the situation, if that’s true? It means the buying was getting to the point where it was just about to put INFINITE pressure on the price of the shares. It means virtually any ask was getting bid.
OMG that is so good. It is so good. I love it.
Mugen no pressure.
I see it now. Quantum financial reset. Break the System. Burn it down. Only from the ashes, can the Phoenix of New Atlantis be reborn with an actual American Constitution.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l7bpf5/30_seconds_from_triggering_market_nuclear_bomb/
The markets are definitely burning. Every stock was being affected this week. And I mean every stock. It has to do with lack of liquidity and margin.
https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1354911653582630915
The clear firms gave them a call and said they won’t pay to settle the trades, but they will pay for people to sell the shares (increase liquidity). We Bull had a “margin malfunction” and it was reset almost to zero yesterday or the day before.
The system is indeed buckling, if Schwab and Amtrade are also in on it. If they are blocking, that means their clearing firms no longer have liquidity. Do people understand what it means when the financial giants, clearing firms, no longer have the liquidity or wish to risk holding the debt while waiting for 3 day trade settles? Trades settle in 3 days. That means if someone buys, sells, buys, sells, buys, the clearing firm has to up front the cost on margin or cash until the trades settle. How big would the numbers have to be for them to literally refuse to clear any more shares?
The American corporation has been bankrupt for some time now, due to over leveraging the crude oil, that hit record lows in March 2020. The system just printed more money. The financial system is built on over leveraging using economic bank numbers. If they have 100 dollars of assets or liquidity, they leverage that to be 4-5x. That means they are trading or using up to 400-500 USD, when their actual assets are like 100 USD or less.
There are 5 star planets in Capricorn right now, detonating government and the status quo. Mercury will retrograde into Capricorn in a day or so. An auspicious time for a reset.
This morning’s OT comment by me.
This is an insightful, intriguing question in a comment at Sarah hoyt’s blog.
G
The topic Sarah post on is competence and the Left’s embrace of incompetence. As if Ignorance is Strenth is their real agenda for all people.
Votermom:
“my blog friend had just commented that she finally figured out the pattern behind the selection of Biden appointees. He (or whoever is pulling his strings) is picking high ranking Dems with literally no history of accomplishments for the new job field. Buttigieg for Transpo. Peppermint Psaki “I’ll circle back on that” Press Sec. Dr Tranny “let me rescue *my* mom from the nursing home before locking everyone elses’s parents in with plague carriers as Health Sec. Gov Raimondo of RI, ranked 50th statefor business friendliness, as Commerce Sec.
“A Cabinet of Incompetents. Almost as if the admin is designed to fail. Why?”
One could go on about this. Speculating. How does one reign in useful answers towards answering this issue?
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2021/01/28/competence-and-take-overs/#comment-743567
One more OT: Zoe Phin puts the Bidet WH perfuming the rotting swamp against his unpopularity, which I’ve seen first hand, and adds a systematic numerical look at when and how much he illusion of Biden love is being manufactured our Evil Overlords.
Another psyOp, just like His Fraudulence’ “election,” no doubt.
“ The Whitehouse Youtube Channel for the most popular President ever elected is being unliked en mass. Youtube kicked Donald Trump off the “platform”, so hordes of fans are tuning into Joe Biden’s channel instead, and they’re not happy. Joe Biden’s inauguration video tally currently stands at 4,300 “likes’ ” and 48,000 ‘dislikes’ Realizing the PR flop that this is, Youtube quietly unlisted the video to hide it from searches”
“Youtube rushes to hide the mass unpopularity of Biden Whitehouse”
https://joannenova.com.au/2021/01/youtube-rushes-to-hide-the-mass-unpopularity-of-biden-whitehouse/
Zoe direct for geeks:
https://phzoe.com/2021/01/27/white-house-youtube-dislike-manipulation/
“Incompetents”?
If only….
They would very much like you to think they’re “merely” incompetent.
(What they really are is Marxist revolutionaries….)
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/california-ethnic-studies-curriculum
H/T Instapundit
Ah, if only Uncle Joe knew…..
Except that he does, of course.
The war that was declared on Republicans (and The Republic) in 2016 by Hillary Clinton and Obama’s confederates, and which was waged for four long years by Democrats and the Mainstream Corrupt Media has culminated in a stolen election that will now give the Democrats and their allies the power to take hostilities to the next step.
It is war—No Malarky—and though I mentioned above that it was declared in 2016, the actual year was 2009…simply because “Politics is [fundamental transformation] by other means”. And there is nothing that the Democrats will not do to cement their power and imprint their world view on the US.
(Kurt Schlichter, no matter how much one would prefer to look away, has been proven right.)
According to MarketWatch, the percentage of GameStop shares sold short is indeed 138%! The closest companies in comparison are only in the 60% range, which sounds bad enough, but well over 100% is insane.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-you-could-lose-everything-by-short-selling-stocks-whether-its-betting-against-gamestop-or-tesla-11611669028
This sounds like it’s illegal or should be — I’m no market expert — but it has happened. Moving against such an over-leveraged position is an obvious play, like those small funds who moved against the mortgage-backed securities in 2008 and cleaned up. Of course, they were shorting, not going long as our reddit friends are now doing.
Since this time it’s grubby ordinary day traders on grubby social media making the raid, it’s time to stop their play and have them investigated, not the big hedgies who have injudiciously shorted 38% more shares of GameStop than exist.
Fractal Rabbit, great summation in your first comment.
Warren Meyer, a businessman and Harvard B-school grad, discusses this, over on Coyoteblog:
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2021/01/the-public-really-hates-and-misunderstands-short-sellers.html#disqus_thread
I bought 25 @ 338…late wednesday……$8500…………..could afford to lose it all (had a great year last year)……..it will be quite a ride today. I find it funny that Maxine Waters is barking. Im sure she has no clue whats happening.
Id like to make a quick buck today, but I’ll probably hold and keep with the program.
This is not hyperbole: I have been waiting almost a decade for the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street to figure out they are both, essentially, the same team and this Game Stop trading event is a very positive signal that we may have turned that corner.
It’s similar to Fractal Rabbit’s comment at 6:51pm. This has been going on in a big way at least since the first George Bush… Clinton Bush II, Obama… Government and Wall Street collude to pump up a sector of the economy; wealthy people get huge bonuses and payouts from the scheme, the bubble pops and Congress votes to use the little guy’s tax money (and/or print money and devalue the bills already in the little guy’s wallet) to reset the board and prop up the wealthy.
What started the Tea Party? President Obama began pushing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a package costing close to $1 trillion, and Rick Santelli blew up during a CNBC segment from the Chicago Stock Exchange that went viral:
A large, truly grass roots movement quickly formed. That movement was focused on limiting the power of the federal government.
About 2 1/2 years later Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park in Manhattan. A large, grass roots movement quickly formed. That movement was focused on limiting the power of large corporations and banks.
Guess what? The large corporations and banks are in bed, intimately in bed, with the federal government.
Both movements scared the sh*t out of big business AND the government. What if the rubes wake up and realize, to borrow Fractal Rabbit’s quote from George Carlin, “There’s a powerful club stealing from you and you ain’t in it.”
What did we see after both movements formed? A huge shift in media and popular culture to segmentation and division on intrinsic characteristics. “The Tea Party are a bunch of old folks, mainly rural, mainly white. They haven’t adapted to the new economy and are bitter of other’s success.” “Occupy Wall Street are a bunch of young, urban kids who borrowed too much money to get worthless degrees and so they are bitter of other’s success.”
The media divided and conquered. Well, we aren’t all that stupid. As a matter of fact, most of us are smarter than they think. We didn’t believe their narrative; that we are a nation of bitter, racist morons. We know that is not true. But we didn’t have a voice. They own(ed) the megaphones.
This Wallstreet bets Reddit group showed that they cannot keep us voiceless, and we certainly aren’t stupid. We know the financial games they are playing. We know it’s a sham. Cancel someone on twitter, he’ll go to Reddit. Cancel him on Reddit, he’ll go to 4Chan. Shut down Parler’s servers, Parler will find a new hosting company…
And in their attempt to stifle dissent coming at them from so many directions they have gotten sloppy. And in their sloppiness almost everyone can see the man behind the curtain is a joke. A sham. A corrupt, little, power hungry mite. And very, very evil. The COVID lockdowns, the Green New Deal, Diversity Indoctrination, Race division, Cancel the Police… All attempts to keep us from cooperating and conversing.
There are millions of smart, engaged young people (and a lot of us older folks) who are wide awake and very aware of what is going on and we know we are in the majority. And their sloppiness; the mishandling of the election, the National Guard living in DC, Biden’s tidal wave of Executive Orders just after he sat down in the Oval Office, stopping trading on GME… they have revealed that they cannot plug the dike. A million clever Davids are fighting back.
I am very optimistic. Keep the faith.
I have no idea if Bidet or his gang of thugs was involved in all the GameStop stuff, but take a look at some of Bidet’s biggest $$$ donors.
At the top you will find a bunch of hedge funds. Also Goldman Sachs , a more or less “conventional” investment bank, is a well known donor to the liberal progressive politicians (this includes Chuck Schumer).
The big lie is that the demokrats are for the little guy; they are not.
The are literally OWNED by Wall Street, hedge funds and the billionaire internet moguls.
The dems are the party of, by and for the billionaire ruling elites.
About 2 1/2 years later Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park in Manhattan. A large, grass roots movement quickly formed. That movement was focused on limiting the power of large corporations and banks.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I share your interest in the commonality of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street and believe it significant — like Codevilla’s article that the left/right conflict is real but the top/bottom is as important or more so. As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, the culture war is a cover for class war. (Covid policies come to mind.)
However, Occupy Wall Street went a good ways beyond your summary above. OWS was launched by the hard left publication, “AdBusters,” which openly admits its goal is “the death knell of capitalism.” OWS was not about reform, but outright revolution.
Back then I couldn’t believe the naivete of the nice liberal folks who assumed the OWS was the Summer of Love Redux — never mind all the red/black colors, upraised fists, hard-core communist activists, and the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street website:
The only solution is WorldRevolution.
Hmm… the Occupy Wall Street website is still up and you can see the WorldRevolution slogan midway down the right column.
http://occupywallst.org
It now appears to be the megaphone for a hard left activist, Micah White, who was an editor at “AdBusters” and claims to be one of the co-creators of Occupy.
Warren Meyer, a businessman and Harvard B-school grad, discusses this, over on Coyoteblog:
https://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2021/01/the-public-really-hates-and-misunderstands-short-sellers.html#disqus_thread — OBloodyHell
Yup. Tom Grey misunderstood me a couple days ago on this point (and he was correct on short selling). Well regulated short selling is a good thing for a market. Decades ago, Saudi Arabia thought they would create a cleaner more ethical stock market by not allowing any short selling. Their whole market blew up sky high and then imploded.
______
This sounds like it’s illegal or should be — I’m no market expert — but it has happened. Moving against such an over-leveraged position is an obvious play, like those small funds who moved against the mortgage-backed securities in 2008 and cleaned up.
—
… not the big hedgies who have injudiciously shorted 38% more shares of GameStop than exist. — huxley
All correct. But short selling and over-leveraging need not go together, although they did here. As huxley said, these folks were playing with shares that don’t exist. Sure it’s injudicious for the hedge fund that demanded the borrowed shares, but somebody is committing a type of fraud.
That somebody is the giant investment bank/brokerage who tells the hedge fund “We don’t actually have shares to lend you, but we will pretend otherwise (because it’s all just 1’s and 0’s in a file somewhere) and we will worry about cleaning it all up later when the 3 day settlement period ends.” IMHO this is the origin of the real crime, which maybe isn’t even a crime if the SEC says it isn’t.
I was researching the current regs. on naked short selling yesterday on Investopedia. Roughly, they said it was legal before the credit bust of 2008 and illegal after. They also had a laughably corrupt paragraph on how naked short selling helps liquidity and market price discovery. (Cough – bullsh_t). They also said it can lead to real issues with FTD or Fail To Deliver. So presumably there are folks who paid real cash for shares only to discover days later that they don’t have the shares.
huxley,
What motivates so many to empathize, protest with, or even join OWS, BLM, Antifa, Bernie Bros.? A feeling that the game is rigged against one and reform is not only NOT possible through existing institutions, those very institutions are in on the game.
No offense, but you are falling for the divide and conquer tactic. Look, there were scumbags in the Tea Party movement. Folks who saw an opportunity to make money, and did. But the reason so many connected with the Tea Party is also the reason so many connect with those other groups.
The Tea Party wants to end government control over our lives. OWS and the Bernie Bros. want to end corporate control over our lives. If these groups figure out Big Business = Big Government then they are also on the same team.
By the transitive property; if a group is against Big Business and another group is against Big Government and Big Business = Big Government then both groups are against the same thing; fighting the same fight.
What do all rulers fear? Their greatest fear?
Monarchs, royals, Dictators, Warlords? Their biggest fear is that the ruled/governed figure out that they outnumber the rulers/governors.
We, the ruled/governed, are all in this together. You have much more in common with a tattooed, pierced, Wall Street occupier than you do with Mitch McConnel or Bernie Sanders. When they trick Tea Partiers to think Mitch is on their team and Bernie is the enemy they divide the populus. When they trick the Wall Street Occupiers to think Bernie is on their team and Mitch is the enemy they divide the populus.
Don’t fall for it.
The Black Swan
TommyJay:
I agree that short selling has its place in the market and I agree that it should be regulated.
It does seem that the prevention of over-shorting a stock, if that’s a term, should fall to the investment bank/brokerages — presumably driven by SEC rules.
Next time you start to despair about the Democrats and the Left being calculating masterminds who will always be one step ahead, remember this.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/
That’s Talking Points Memo and while it might not be the top liberal site on the web, it’s certainly one of the more important and viewed. And how many stories do they have on their front page about the GameStop Wars as I post this?
ZERO. Not one single story. Neo has done a better job covering one of the biggest stories in the country than one of the top liberal news and information sites in America. The issues being raised right now with Wall Street could wind up being massively important in both the 2022 and 2024 elections…and TPM can’t be bothered to have a single story about it.
These people might wind up doing a hell of a lot of damage but make not mistake…THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE.
Mike
huxley,
I think we’re on the same page. The over 100% short interest in the gaming company is such an obvious sign of trouble, but another company could have a 50% short interest and still be victimized by naked short selling.
Ages ago, Warren Buffet used make sure he held actual paper shares of stock in a safe he owned. It wasn’t just an anachronism. He specifically wanted to prevent other investors from shorting his shares. Nowadays, there are other ways of removing shares from the borrowable pool.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I believe I made it clear in my first paragraph that the overlap between concerns of Occupy and the concerns of the Tea Party is worth noting and that one can observe the current societal divisions more in terms of Top/Bottom than Right/Left.
That said, I don’t expect to see the Bottom Right and Bottom Left embracing any time soon in the face of the common enemy Above. Your summary of Occupy’s goals struck me as uninformed.
Right now Antifa is rioting in Portland because they don’t like Biden. I don’t like Biden either. However, I don’t feel I’ve been tricked into being divided from my Antifa brothers. The enemy of my enemy may be my temporary ally, but not necessarily my friend.
You have much more in common with a tattooed, pierced, Wall Street occupier than you do with Mitch McConnell or Bernie Sanders.
Is it really that simple? I spent much of my life on the left. I don’t take your point.
Mr Bunge:
It’s not that they are calculating masterminds, if they were why would they follow socialism/communism?
It’s that they know how to organize and energize useful idiots. Or to repeat it for you. They know at least one thing; how to gain power in spite of being idiots about most everything else. That one thing makes them very dangerous.
DuckDuck go on you-dad-redditor-shares-heartbreaking-reason-destroying-short-sellers-wsb-raids
ZeroHedge calls the short-selling carnage on Wall Street a “David vs Goliath” situation. Below, an explanation of why one retail investor is taking the risk. I suggest there is a parallel with those of us who feel a need to fight back against the Left and the Elites who are destroying the country and culture we love. These day traders have found a way . . . for a while. Maybe we will, too.
“This is for you, Dad.
“I remember when the housing collapse sent a torpedo through my family. My father’s concrete company collapsed almost overnight. My father lost his home. My uncle lost his home. I remember my brother helping my father count pocket change on our kitchen table. That was all the money he had left in the world. While this was happening in my home, I saw hedge funders literally drinking champagne as they looked down on the Occupy Wall Street protestors. I will never forget that.
“My Father never recovered from that blow. He fell deeper and deeper into alcoholism and exists now as a shell of his former self, waiting for death.
“This is all the money I have and I’d rather lose it all than give them what they need to destroy me. Taking money from me won’t hurt me, because i don’t value it at all. I’ll burn it all down just to spite them.”
“They know at least one thing; how to gain power in spite of being idiots about most everything else.”
Donald Trump got elected President in 2016. Republicans actually gained seats in the U.S. House in 2020 and if Mitch McConnell was honest with himself about being an old whore, the GOP would have probably held control of the U.S. Senate.
And in pursuit of power (defeating Donald Trump), they just did massive damage to the entertainment industry that is one of their major power bases. They are also in the process of doing massive damage to the education industry that is another.
And just to throw this out there, the Biden Administration isn’t even a month old and if Joe Biden was in any way involved in ordering the shutdown of trading related to the GameStop Wars…we may already have the first article of impeachment for the GOP to vote on after they take back the House in 2022.
Mike
Cap’n Rusty:
Yes. I’ve read a number of GameStop buyers explaining their choice in terms of the 2008 meltdown.
In “The Big Short” Brad Pitt plays the big trader who helps a couple young guys who seize the moment in 2008 to make money off the collapse. They are giddy with excitement, high-fiving and dancing:
_____________________________________
Brad Pitt: You just bet against the American economy. Which means…
If we’re right, people lose homes. People lose jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about fucking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here’s a number – every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?
Just … don’t fuckin’ dance.
–“The Big Short”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chWCcec_gzg
_____________________________________
I think of that unemployment statistic when I think of Covid.
_____________________________________
The actual figure in academic research is a 37,000 increase for each percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate. It comes from a book called “Corporate Flight: The Causes and Consequences of Economic Dislocation” by Barry Bluestone, Bennett Harrison and Lawrence Baker.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/explaining-the-link-between-unemployment-deaths-amid-coronavirus/
Joe Biden was in any way involved in ordering the shutdown of trading related to the GameStop Wars
Joe Biden cannot find his breast pocket in order to put his pen away.
The median duration of stage 4 Alzheimer’s is two years. We have a proximate relation who is suffering thus. There was a family gathering where he lives in November. Until it was explained to him who they were, he failed to recognize his wife’s grandchildren, two of whom were visiting; he’s been acquainted with one of them for 32 years and the other for 38 years and they both visited just a year ago. Left alone in the house for a while, he made three failing attempts to heat up prepared meals for himself. His wife and stepdaughter returned after nine and discovered he hadn’t eaten anything.
Matt Taibbi explains a lot of nuts-and-bolts, with raspberries for the dolts.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/suck-it-wall-street
If there are any readers here not familiar with Matt, he was recently kicked off of Rolling Stone magazine for being an honest liberal.
Off topic but related perhaps?
“This goes way beyond the insanity the Democrats are famous for. READ THE BILL. It is designed to disarm the nation (except the rich, of course).
Key points:
– to get a license to possess a firearm and/or ammunition everyone needs to undergo a “Psychological evaluation”
– everyone needs to pay an $800 “fee” to obtain “Firearm Insurance”
– everyone who DOESN’T get the “Psychological evaluation” and pay the $800 “fee”, has a short period of time to turn in their firearms and ammunition…after which they will be fined NO LESS than $75,000
The goal is to make it financially impossible for most people to possess a firearm and/or ammunition.”
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/127/text?loclr=cga-bill
Joltin’ Joe got a boatload of “dark money” from Wall Street. Friends of whom are being beaten up and losing their *checks notes* shirts to a bunch of unwashed redditors.
It’s good to have friends in the White House.
Thank you Rufus.
I did a few gme trades today. Exciting for sure.
69 up. Not bad for trading 1 to 2 shares.
Also gme is in a worst short pos. Only 25% shares are fkoating or trading. Most shares are held by company ceo board members. If 51% was floating then nobody will know who has majority control of corp day to day.
Shareholders get to vote after all.
So when shorts are 140 percent and the total shares available for trading is 25 percent……
To tj, blue kama is like a puppet show. Theories exist who the masters are. Q or dark state or just satans
Take ur pick
Rufus firefly, an alliance is compendable but orgs are usually astroturf or false flag hijacking.
So brandon straka is an ally naturally via walkaway. So the alliance exists. Thus they divide and conquer, arrest straka. Break the resistance piece by piece.
Get informants or conservatives to turn on straka. Easy. Your own cbildren will report you for the concentration camp.
Divine council giving stock tips too or just following astrology? I know, you’ve “got this covered.” LOL
huxley,
I apologize, but I’m not really sure where we are disagreeing. It appears we genuinely are, but it will be hard for me to clarify without knowing what point to clear up.
Maybe this is it:
Are there greedy and/or corrupt people in the world willing to start or manipulate groups for personal gain? Yes. You cite shady characters in OWS. There were also shady characters in the Tea Party movement. I agree with you there.
But why are people attracted to the Tea Party and OWS, or Bernie and Socialism, or Trump and Nationalism? As Fractal Rabbit and George Carlin and H. L. Mencken and Groucho Marx and a host of others believe(d); the little guy is getting screwed.
It’s not “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It’s “my enemy’s enemy is also my enemy; they are literally the same enemy.”
OWS and the Tea Party and BLM and Antifa all disagree on solutions but they all recognize the enemy. Accurately.
The banks are in bed with the hedge funds who are in bed with multi-national corporations who are in bed with the big social media providers who are in bed with the major media companies who are in bed with the K street lobbyists and 80+% of the House and Senate.
The banks and the hedge funds and the multi-national corporations and the big social media providers and the major media companies and K street lobbyists and 80+% of the House and Senate DO NOT want us all to figure out that we share the same enemy. If we do, game over. So they keep playing these groups against each other.
How different were the Capitol Hill occupiers from the Portland occupiers? They look different, and the media plays up those intrinsic characteristics to illicit tribalism to keep us divided. But are they different? Rick Santelli and the Tea Party were sick of the government bailing out Wall Street. OWS was sick of Wall Street firms ruling politics. How is that different in any real sense?
I think the dam may be bursting. There is so much information now flowing so freely that it is hard to control and it is harder and harder to rabbit hole their lies and misinformation.
OWS was sick of Wall Street firms ruling politics. How is that different in any real sense?
Rufus T. Firefly:
The difference, as I see it, is Occupy wasn’t really about Wall Street and 2008. That was just the latest cause. It may have gotten some fresh blood into the movement, but OWS was about what the left is always about — getting the revolution on.
Civil rights, ban the bomb, the Vietnam War, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, nuclear weapons and nuclear power, apartheid, the WTO, Occupy and now Antifa/BLM and transgenderism. It’s all the same to the left and mostly the same people. Most leaders of Antifa/BLM are ex-Occupy or ex-New Left or mentored by them.
It’s about dismantling capitalism and bringing the revolution. I might not have much in common with Mitch McConnell, when it comes to evening wear and dinner parties, but we are on the same side of the revolution.
Occupy Wall Steet: The only solution is WorldRevolution.
Portland Antifa/BLM throw Molotov cocktails, burn down businesses, physically assault people (soccer kick to the head), try to blind LEOs, assassinate political opponents, and so forth. Capitol rioters, broke window(s), inconvenienced Congress for one day, got executed, and of course gave the left a justification for suppression of individual rights. One of these things is not like the other.
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