One of the quintessential attributes of the American dream is that the little guy can become the big guy, or rather through the creative destruction of the free enterprise system, a small entrepreneur may destabilize and replace a larger competitor through innovation, cost savings, and better ideas.
The CEO of Robin Hood was on Bloomberg (also CNN's Chris Cuomo, FWIW). He said, being highly regulated, they had no choice but to stop trading on GAME STOP to meet regulatory requirements. He did say they, knowing the rules, were proactive. He also said they were taking steps to open buying again as early as this morning. I take that to mean they were getting a capital infusion.
I went to that link to Russ Vought. I read "How to Lead the United States into an American Spring." There's much to like. I would quibble with a few of the policy prescriptions. I like the China position but he didn't mentioned what we should do when China attempts to annex Taiwan. But lets leave the policy details aside.
Nowhere, nowhere in this piece did he mention that Republicans need to accept that Trump lost the election. Nowhere did he discuss the need for Republicans to accept reality. And now that the Impeachment trial is sure to fail to convict, what about Mr. Trump? I see his PAC has eschewed the idea of the Patriot Party and will work to regain control of the House and Senate. Both are worthy goals, but what about Mr. Trump?
I was never a fan of Mr. Trump but while I can forget much of his shenanigans, the events from November 3 to January 6 are seared in my brain. I can never trust him.
There is an airport near DFW called Alliance. FedEx, Walmart & Amazon have operations there. FedEx has been there the longest and is struggling to keep people. In general FedEx pays $10/hr, WM $13/hr and Amazon $15 and hour. FedEx thinks people will work for less if they are treated better by the company...so far that isn't happening.
Not only has it been the big corps that want a higher min wage, but also that wanted Obama care...for the same reasons...actually different reasons, but really the same outcome.
One of the many funny things about this Gamestop action is how many of the younger folks on CNBC say "its the new normal". What they don't know is, when AOL was big, it had chat rooms, the same stuff went on, before that, bulletin boards, etc. Not a new normal, but rather entertaining, for sure.
As a democratic socialist, I decry the Democratic Party’s pandering to the elite. I think together - left and right - we can work to create an America where the little guy can rise up without being put in place by an unfair system benefitting the incumbents.
This is very predictable: Whenever there are 3 parties to a deal (business, government, and individual investors) the bigger 2 of the 3 will gang up on and screw the smallest. The exact same thing has happened in health care where the 3 parties are providers, insurers and patients: providers and insurance have cooperated to fleece patients. Anyone who thinks government will fix the situation is nuts.
Worked for many years with the money managers and hedge fund guys (there is a difference), the hedge fund guys are a special kind of scumbags. They are all in NYC or CA and most of them are math or engineering majors, not business or economic majors since they are not interested in building companies rather they are looking to arbitrage the market for their benefit, they add nothing to the economy overall since they rarely create anything. Most are all democrats and run in the same NY and CA circles, trust me they make fun of us for eating at Olive Garden or going to Disney for vacation. If this hedge fund could put GME out of business with the shorts they would have and been hailed as a free market hero because they eliminated a weak company -- we should throw a parade for the Reddit guys. They arbitraged the arbitrators, the hedge fund got greedy and short 140% of the outstanding stock, the Reddit guys saw this and pounced knowing that they were exposed. Then the Elon Musk's of the world hopped in just to put a nail in the coffin because these hedge funds have gone after his company many times, mind you not to help grow it rather to destroy it.
Admittedly, there’s something very appealing about these “Davids” taking down the hedge fund “Goliaths.” But, how do they get the GameStop stock to go from $7 to $300 without someone buying a large number of shares at $300? And, if the stock is “really” worth $7, aren’t these Davids risking a lot, or can they simply defy gravity?
James, of course the Davids are risking money, although at $7/share, it isn’t that much compared to the amounts the hedge fund guys routinely risk. And, I’m quite sure that some of the Davids have already cashed out, pocketing nice profits. The larger point is that such speculation is the most basic form of capitalism.
The whole point of the exercise is that in a capitalist society, people are free to take risks in search of higher rewards. The perversion of capitalism often called “crony capitalism” in essence seeks to eliminate risk and guarantee reward - for the most well connected elites, that is. I find it a form of karmic comeuppance that some of the most rapacious elites are having their oxen gored. And, the whining of regulators and CNBC only proves that the American financial system is no longer in any way, shape, or form a truly free market subject to the basic forces of capitalism, but rather a form of casino which like the crooked poker game in the old joke, still attracts suckers because it is the only game in town.
Let the Davids slay the Goliaths, indeed; it’s good, and almost unheard of, to see the cronies hoist upon their own petard.
It is a game of chicken, they know at some point the hedge fund will have to buy back shares, at some point, it will go back to the fair market value (whatever that is), but some of the whales like Musk do not care they just want to help destroy the hedge fund. There will be plenty of Robinhood account holders that will be left holding the bag if they stay long.
The author writes about the “Boredom Markets Hypothesis”, defined as “the notion that stocks these days are driven not by rational calculations about their expected future cash flows but by the fact that people are bored at home due to the pandemic and have nothing better to do but trade stocks with their buddies on Reddit. Why not trade GameStop?” That’s actually quite revelatory of what financial markets have become; a place where the most nihilistic, destructive drives somehow become financial strategies praised on CNBC.
The CEO of Robin Hood was on Bloomberg (also CNN's Chris Cuomo, FWIW). He said, being highly regulated, they had no choice but to stop trading on GAME STOP to meet regulatory requirements. He did say they, knowing the rules, were proactive. He also said they were taking steps to open buying again as early as this morning. I take that to mean they were getting a capital infusion.
I went to that link to Russ Vought. I read "How to Lead the United States into an American Spring." There's much to like. I would quibble with a few of the policy prescriptions. I like the China position but he didn't mentioned what we should do when China attempts to annex Taiwan. But lets leave the policy details aside.
Nowhere, nowhere in this piece did he mention that Republicans need to accept that Trump lost the election. Nowhere did he discuss the need for Republicans to accept reality. And now that the Impeachment trial is sure to fail to convict, what about Mr. Trump? I see his PAC has eschewed the idea of the Patriot Party and will work to regain control of the House and Senate. Both are worthy goals, but what about Mr. Trump?
I was never a fan of Mr. Trump but while I can forget much of his shenanigans, the events from November 3 to January 6 are seared in my brain. I can never trust him.
So, what about Mr. Trump?
Thanks for the link to Center for American Restoration.
There is an airport near DFW called Alliance. FedEx, Walmart & Amazon have operations there. FedEx has been there the longest and is struggling to keep people. In general FedEx pays $10/hr, WM $13/hr and Amazon $15 and hour. FedEx thinks people will work for less if they are treated better by the company...so far that isn't happening.
Not only has it been the big corps that want a higher min wage, but also that wanted Obama care...for the same reasons...actually different reasons, but really the same outcome.
One of the many funny things about this Gamestop action is how many of the younger folks on CNBC say "its the new normal". What they don't know is, when AOL was big, it had chat rooms, the same stuff went on, before that, bulletin boards, etc. Not a new normal, but rather entertaining, for sure.
As a democratic socialist, I decry the Democratic Party’s pandering to the elite. I think together - left and right - we can work to create an America where the little guy can rise up without being put in place by an unfair system benefitting the incumbents.
This is very predictable: Whenever there are 3 parties to a deal (business, government, and individual investors) the bigger 2 of the 3 will gang up on and screw the smallest. The exact same thing has happened in health care where the 3 parties are providers, insurers and patients: providers and insurance have cooperated to fleece patients. Anyone who thinks government will fix the situation is nuts.
Worked for many years with the money managers and hedge fund guys (there is a difference), the hedge fund guys are a special kind of scumbags. They are all in NYC or CA and most of them are math or engineering majors, not business or economic majors since they are not interested in building companies rather they are looking to arbitrage the market for their benefit, they add nothing to the economy overall since they rarely create anything. Most are all democrats and run in the same NY and CA circles, trust me they make fun of us for eating at Olive Garden or going to Disney for vacation. If this hedge fund could put GME out of business with the shorts they would have and been hailed as a free market hero because they eliminated a weak company -- we should throw a parade for the Reddit guys. They arbitraged the arbitrators, the hedge fund got greedy and short 140% of the outstanding stock, the Reddit guys saw this and pounced knowing that they were exposed. Then the Elon Musk's of the world hopped in just to put a nail in the coffin because these hedge funds have gone after his company many times, mind you not to help grow it rather to destroy it.
They just want to pull up the ladder of success after they reach the top. They pray to the gods of money and power.
Admittedly, there’s something very appealing about these “Davids” taking down the hedge fund “Goliaths.” But, how do they get the GameStop stock to go from $7 to $300 without someone buying a large number of shares at $300? And, if the stock is “really” worth $7, aren’t these Davids risking a lot, or can they simply defy gravity?
James, of course the Davids are risking money, although at $7/share, it isn’t that much compared to the amounts the hedge fund guys routinely risk. And, I’m quite sure that some of the Davids have already cashed out, pocketing nice profits. The larger point is that such speculation is the most basic form of capitalism.
The whole point of the exercise is that in a capitalist society, people are free to take risks in search of higher rewards. The perversion of capitalism often called “crony capitalism” in essence seeks to eliminate risk and guarantee reward - for the most well connected elites, that is. I find it a form of karmic comeuppance that some of the most rapacious elites are having their oxen gored. And, the whining of regulators and CNBC only proves that the American financial system is no longer in any way, shape, or form a truly free market subject to the basic forces of capitalism, but rather a form of casino which like the crooked poker game in the old joke, still attracts suckers because it is the only game in town.
Let the Davids slay the Goliaths, indeed; it’s good, and almost unheard of, to see the cronies hoist upon their own petard.
It is a game of chicken, they know at some point the hedge fund will have to buy back shares, at some point, it will go back to the fair market value (whatever that is), but some of the whales like Musk do not care they just want to help destroy the hedge fund. There will be plenty of Robinhood account holders that will be left holding the bag if they stay long.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-25/the-game-never-stops
Interesting. If llllooonnnnggg.
The author writes about the “Boredom Markets Hypothesis”, defined as “the notion that stocks these days are driven not by rational calculations about their expected future cash flows but by the fact that people are bored at home due to the pandemic and have nothing better to do but trade stocks with their buddies on Reddit. Why not trade GameStop?” That’s actually quite revelatory of what financial markets have become; a place where the most nihilistic, destructive drives somehow become financial strategies praised on CNBC.
Oh they are risking a lot and people are going to lose money. But they have the right or should have the right.