Jan 292021
 


Gustave Courbet The wave 1870

 

Suck It, Wall Street (Matt Taibbi)
GameStop Soars 75% After-Hours After Robinhood Lifts Trading Ban (ZH)
Janet Yellen Received $810K In Speaking Fees From Hedge Fund (DC)
Losses On Short Positions In US Firms Top $70 Billion (R.)
AMC Entertainment Explores New Capital Raise Amid Stock Surge (MSN)
GameStop: Intentionally Dying (Chris Arnade)
D.C. Bar Yet To Disbar Ex-FBI attorney Clinesmith (JTN)
Novavax Vaccine Only 50% Effective Against South African COVID Strain (ZH)
Biden Stops Trump Order To Slash Price Of Insulin, EpiPen (DW)
Democrats Introduce Senate Bill To Make D.C. The 51st State (Turley)
Wall Street To Require Traders Wear A Top Hat And Monocle (BBee)

 

 

The craziest thing about the ongoing Robinhood and WallStreetBets saga must be that the former was selling their clients’ positions in GameStop without permission. That’s even worse than halting trading. It’s like your bank selling your home because that pleases them for some reason. Bet a lot of people never knew that Robinhood was just a division of Citadel. Well, they know now.

Also pretty crazy is Janet Yellen receiving $800,000 in “speaking fees” from Citadel but refusing to recuse herself from the case. That could mean Biden needs to find a replacement, fast. Because her ethics agreement appears quite clear on the matter. Then again, she’s gobbled up so many of these fees from so many financial companies that she would be a lame duck Treasury Secretary if the ethics were actually applied and enforced. To be continued.

 

 

 

 

 

Greenwald GameStop

 

 

Politicians are getting involved, and not only to defend Wall Street.

 

 

Tucker Portnoy

 

 

 

 

“In case this was lost on folks, yesterday’s Total Volume on the Nasdaq eclipsed the previous daily record…by 50%!!”

 

 

 

 

“They are like looters after a hurricane,” seethed Andrew Cuomo, then-Attorney General of New York State, who “promised to intensify investigations into short selling abuses.”

Suck It, Wall Street (Matt Taibbi)

In the fall of 2008, America’s wealthiest companies were in a pickle. Short-selling hedge funds, smelling blood as the global economy cratered, loaded up with bets against finance stocks, pouring downward pressure on teetering, hyper-leveraged firms like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. The free-market purists at the banks begged the government to stop the music, and when the S.E.C. complied with a ban on financial short sales, conventional wisdom let out a cheer. “This will absolutely make a difference,” economist Peter Cardillo told CNN. “Now, if there is any good news, shorts will have to cover.” At the time, poor beleaguered banks were victims, while hedge funds betting them down as the economy circled the drain were seen as antisocial monsters.

“They are like looters after a hurricane,” seethed Andrew Cuomo, then-Attorney General of New York State, who “promised to intensify investigations into short selling abuses.” Senator John McCain, in the home stretch of his eventual landslide loss to Barack Obama, added that S.E.C. chairman Christopher Cox had “betrayed the public’s trust” by allowing “speculators and hedge funds” to “turn our markets into a casino.” Fast forward thirteen years. The day-trading followers of a two-million-subscriber Reddit forum called “wallstreetbets” somewhat randomly decide to keep short-sellers from laying waste to a brick-and-mortar retail video game company called GameStop, betting it up in defiance of the Street. Worth just $6 four months ago, the stock went from $18.36 on the afternoon of the Capitol riot, to $43.03 on the 21st two weeks later, to $147.98 this past Tuesday the 26th, to an incredible $347.51 at the close of the next day, January 27th.

The rally sent crushing losses at short-selling hedge funds like Melvin Capital, which was forced to close out its position at a cost of nearly $3 billion. Just like 2008, down-bettors got smashed, only this time, there were no quotes from economists celebrating the “good news” that shorts had to cover. Instead, polite society was united in its horror at the spectacle of amateur gamblers doing to hotshot finance professionals what those market pros routinely do to everyone else.

Read more …

Yossi Gestetner on Twitter: “Shorting more stocks than what is available likely means that brokerages double lent shares that they hold. Big chance is @RobinhoodApp did it and could not provide shares for Hedgies who wanted to close their shorts. Hence RH stopped everyone from buying shares. RH needed it!”

GameStop Soars 75% After-Hours After Robinhood Lifts Trading Ban (ZH)

Gamestop shares began to trade higher after Robinhood folded on its earlier trading ban. The move accelerated after-hours and GME is now up 75%, having erased all the day’s losses… The rally appeared to gain ground as Robinhood CEO appeared on CNBC… “In order to protect the firm and protect our customers we had to limit buying in these stocks,” Tenev told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin Thursday evening. “Robinhood is a brokerage firm, we have lots of financial requirements. We have SEC net capital requirements and clearing house deposits. So that’s money that we have to deposit at various clearing houses. Some of these requirements fluctuate quite a bit based on volatility in the market and they can be substantial in the current environment where there’s a lot of volatility and a lot of concentrated activity in these names that have been going viral on social media,” said Tenev.

Tenev also awkwardly denied there was any existing liquidity issue at the firm and said Robinhood had tapped credit lines as a proactive measure. “We want to put ourselves in a position to allow our customers to be as unrestricted as possible in accordance with the requirements and the regulations,” said Tenev. “So we pulled those credit lines so that we could maximize within reason the funds we have to deposit at the clearinghouses.”

Summary of today’s trading chaos:

GME Stock Rallies After-Hours, Erases Day’s Losses.

Protesters At NYSE & Robinhood HQ; Angry At Discount Brokerage.

Robinhood Draws Down On Credit Lines With Banks.

Citadel Securities Denies It Influenced Robhinhood In Restricting Stock Trading In GME.

Robinhood Releases Statement Saying Stock Trading In GME Restarts Friday.

Robinhood Users Complain Their GME Positions Are Being Sold Without Notice.

Elon Musk Agreed With Congresswoman AOC For Investigation In Robinhood Banning Users From Trading GME.

Barstool’s David Portnoy Starts Twitter Spat With Citadel Point72’s Steve Cohen.

User Sues Robinhood In Southern District of New York For “Removing GME From Platform.”

AOC Livid With Robinhood’s Decision To Place Trade Restrictions On Users; Calls It “Unacceptable.”

Robinhood Confirms Users Having Issues With “Equities, Options, And Crypto” Trading.

Interactive Brokers Put AMC, BB, EXPR, GME, and KOSS Option Trading Into liquidation.

Robinhood Restricts Trading In AMC, BB, BBBY, EXPR, GME, KOSS, NAKD & NOK.

TD Ameritrade Placed GME, AMC On Trade Restrictions.

Read more …

“Janet Yellen accepted $810,000 in speaking fees from Citadel, owner of Robinhood.
Reporter: Are there any plans to recuse herself from advising the President on GameStop and Robinhood situation?
Psaki: ‘No and she’s an expert and deserves that money.’”

Janet Yellen Received $810K In Speaking Fees From Hedge Fund (DC)

Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen received more than $800,000 in speaking fees from a hedge fund that has become embroiled in the saga over stock trades for video game retailer GameStop, according to her financial disclosures. Citadel, a hedge fund founded by Ken Griffin, a major GOP donor, paid Yellen $810,000 to speak at several events from October 2019 to October 2020, according to Yellen’s filings with the Office of Government Ethics. The Chicago-based hedge fund paid Yellen $292,500 for a speech on Oct. 17, 2019, $180,000 for one on Dec. 3, 2019, and $337,500 to speak at a series of webinars held from Oct. 9-27, 2020.


Citadel is invested heavily in Melvin Capital, a hedge fund that was reportedly on the brink of bankruptcy this week due to a surge in GameStop share prices. Reddit users on a page called “wallstreetbets” encouraged purchases of GameStop shares in order to exploit Melvin Capital’s short position on the company. A buying spree from retail investors forced Melvin to cover its short position by buying shares of GameStop at elevated prices. Citadel and another firm, 72Point, invested $2.75 billion in Melvin this week after it lost 30% of its capital, according to The Wall Street Journal. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Yellen, who was confirmed by the Senate on Monday, is “monitoring the situation.”

Tucker Yellen
https://twitter.com/i/status/1354980441778843650

Read more …

A lot of money even for a hedge fund.

Losses On Short Positions In US Firms Top $70 Billion (R.)

Short-sellers are sitting on estimated losses of $70.87 billion from their short positions in U.S. companies so far this year, data from financial data analytics firm Ortex showed on Thursday. The hefty losses come as shares of highly-shorted GameStop jumped more than 1,000% in the past week without a clear business reason, forcing short-sellers to buy back into the stock to cover potential losses — defined as a short-squeeze — while retail investors then piled in to benefit from the surge. Chasing shorted companies became a trend among retail traders, rippling across U.S. markets and Europe.


Ortex data showed that as of Wednesday, there were loss-making short positions on more than 5,000 U.S. firms. Its data also showed that estimated losses from shorting GameStop at $1.03 billion year-to-date, while those shorting Bed, Bath & Beyond were looking at a $600 million loss. Ortex said the figures are based on the change in trading prices between the start of January to Wednesday’s close, and the number of short positions. The company sources short interest data from submissions by agent lenders, prime brokers, and broker-dealers.

Read more …

AMC cashes in on WallStreetBets.

AMC Entertainment Explores New Capital Raise Amid Stock Surge (MSN)

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc is exploring raising more capital, including through yet another possible stock sale, to weather the COVID-19 pandemic and take advantage of this week’s rally in its shares, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. The world’s largest movie theater chain, with about 1,000 cinemas worldwide, suffered unprecedented turmoil after the pandemic last year forced it to temporarily close many venues while attendance dropped at those that remained open. AMC staved off bankruptcy through a debt restructuring deal last summer with its creditors and private equity firm Silver Lake, and a series of other financial transactions in recent months.

AMC said on Monday it had raised $917 million since mid-December through equity and debt issues. “This means that any talk of an imminent bankruptcy for AMC is completely off the table,” Chief Executive Adam Aron said in a statement accompanying disclosure of the additional funds. On Wednesday, AMC said it raised an additional $304.8 million by selling shares this week, cashing in on an unprecedented social media-driven rally powered by amateur traders taking on hedge funds that had shorted its shares. On Thursday, it said Silver Lake and other creditors decided to convert debt holdings to equity in a transaction expected to reduce AMC’s obligations by $600 million.

AMC is considering attempting to raise even more money to capitalize further on the frenzy in its shares, the sources said. While its shares dropped about 57% on Thursday, erasing most of the week’s gains, they are still up more than 300% since the beginning of January. AMC said on Monday its “financial runway has been extended deep into 2021.” Still, it could use proceeds from a new capital raise to further trim its $5.5 billion debt pile as of the end of September, according to the sources.

Read more …

“The dog caught the car. The losers got to level twelve of a game nobody, including themselves, thought they would get past level four of.”

GameStop: Intentionally Dying (Chris Arnade)

At the very, very top of our meritocracy is a big game called Wall Street, that the smartest and cleverest get to play, and get paid big bucks for it. They get to choose their character: Trader, Salesperson, Broker, or Lawyer. The traders get to choose their weapon: Stocks, Bonds, Mortgages, Derivatives. Then they are off, navigating different levels, slaying this and that company, currency, or country. Below that is that vast landscape of losers who spend their days building roads, growing food, flipping hamburgers, teaching kids, building small businesses, landscaping yards, and their nights shooting hoops, or reading books, or caring for kids, or going to church. Or, God forbid, playing XBOX or PS4. Those are the worst. A lot of those losers, of every variety but especially the people who play video games, also spend a lot of time on Reddit, or Discord, or Twitch, live-streaming, shitposting, and just having fun.

When they were doing this, some of them noticed that Wall Street was also just a game, and a very profitable one. Sure, it was a little different than Zelda, or Grand Theft Auto, or Demon Souls, but it was a game nonetheless. So they started dipping their toes in and learning this pretty cool and serious game. Then they started telling their friends about it, who told their friends and so on and so on. Some made a little money here and there, others got run over, but hey, it was just another game. Cool. Of course they were the outsiders, the losers, the clowns fucking around for shits and giggles. They understood that. They knew nobody treated them seriously. Hell, they had been called lazy losers all their lives. Might as well embrace that. So they proudly named themselves “Degenerates” and “Autistic Retards.”

Own the stigma, because you ain’t gonna ever shake it or lose it no matter how hard you try. They dabbled here and there, got a little better at it, and soon attracted a few serious players with serious money into their fold. Wall Street players, slumming it, who saw a community of misfits they could lead, teach, or scam, depending on their ethics. So it went, and their numbers and ability grew, and then this summer some of the cleverest Wall Street players, who specialized in making big bets on companies failing, came after GameStop, something they had personal views on. That perked up their interest. Making it even cooler, some legitimately skilled Wall Street players who had joined their island of misfit toys pointed out that GameStop was a good buy, not a good sell, and convinced some of the degenerates to join them.

Also, this mob of shitposters and neophytes was really learning the Wall Street game, and they noticed a flaw and weakness in it. The big players going after GameStop had left themselves exposed. Really exposed. So they did what any gamer does. They attacked by buying GameStop, and hyped and hyped it until everyone smelled blood and joined the attack, and bought GameStop. It worked. Kind of, and unexpectedly. GameStop, which was trading at $5 or so this summer is, as of this writing, trading at $300, give or take $150. A head-turning move even by Wall Street standards. The dog caught the car. The losers got to level twelve of a game nobody, including themselves, thought they would get past level four of.

Read more …

Because many others might then follow?

D.C. Bar Yet To Disbar Ex-FBI attorney Clinesmith (JTN)

Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith will be sentenced Friday for illegally altering a document that was used to authorize the agency’s effort to wiretap former Trump 2016 campaign adviser Carter Page. However, Clinesmith remains in good standing with the District of Columbia’s bar association, which has not begun an investigation into whether the group should strip him of his license to practice law, according to a new report. The D.C. bar as of Thursday still lists Clinesmith as an attorney in “good standing,” despite his pleading guilty nearly six months ago for altering the document. Clinesmith’s guilty plea was reported to the bar, and in September, the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with the group.


“The only appropriate sanction for committing a serious felony that also interfered with the proper administration of justice and constituted misrepresentation, fraud and moral turpitude is disbarment. Anything less would minimize the seriousness of the misconduct,” reads the complaint. Clinesmith was formerly licensed to practice in Michigan, where he attended law school, in addition to the district. The State Bar of Michigan automatically suspended the 38-year-old’s license in mid-August, when the court accepted his guilty plea. The suspension will remain in effect until a review panel determines the ultimate fate of his license.

Read more …

The vaccine mess is growing fast.

Novavax Vaccine Only 50% Effective Against South African COVID Strain (ZH)

The latest COVID-19 vaccine news is unequivocally disappointing. Novavax, one of six US companies that received hundreds of millions of dollars upfront from the US government to develop a COVIID-19 vaccine, has just released preliminary data from its Phase 3 trials. The data showed the vaccine was 89.3% effective in the UK branch of the trial.Vaccine trials were held in nearly half a dozen countries, but in the UK, 62 people (out of roughly 15K) came down with COVID-19 symptoms after receiving either the vaccine or a placebo. Of these, six had received the vaccine, while 56 had gotten the placebo. Yet, in a separate, middle-stage study in South Africa, the trial data suggested the vaccine was much less effective. In South Africa, the Novavax shot was about 49.4% effective against Covid-19 in the study.

Preliminary results showed that more than 90% of the sick subjects for whom sequencing data were available were infected with the new variant circulating in South Africa. The news comes at an inopportune time: A few hours ago, the CDC revealed that the first two confirmed cases of the hyper-infectious South African COVID mutation had been confirmed in South Carolina. In a separate Novavax trial held in South Africa, the efficacy was significantly lower. In a small trial the rate of protection was just 50%. Almost all the cases that scientists have analyzed there so far were caused by the mutated strain, known as B.1.351.

What’s even more disturbing: The data also showed that many trial participants were infected with the variant even after they had already had COVID-19. Novavax tried to put a bright spin on the results. “We have the first trial — we are the first to conduct an efficacy trial — in the face of a changing virus,” said Stanley Erck, the president and chief executive of Novavax. He said that researchers expected the variants could change the trial results, but “the amount of change has been a bit of a surprise to everyone.”

Read more …

Probably nothing.

Biden Stops Trump Order To Slash Price Of Insulin, EpiPen (DW)

President Joe Biden’s United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday stopped executive orders from his predecessor designed to significantly lower prescription drug prices for Americans, including insulin and epinephrine. The new administration will apparently re-evaluate the executive action from President Donald Trump toward the end of March. It remains unclear if it will be reinstated. “The HHS Thursday froze the former Trump administration’s December drug policy that requires community health centers to pass on all their insulin and epinephrine discount savings to patients,” Bloomberg Law reported Thursday. “Centers that don’t pass on the savings wouldn’t qualify for federal grants.”

“This freeze is part of the Biden administration’s large-scale effort announced this week that will scrutinize the Trump administration’s health policies,” the report noted. “If the previous administration’s policies raise ‘fact, law, or policy’ concerns, the Biden HHS will delay them and consult with the Office of Management and Budget about other actions.” A report for Bloomberg Government said the Biden administration is on a “different page” about curbing drug prices than the Trump administration, noting of the Biden team awaiting “at least a dozen lawsuits … over Trump-era moves to lower drug prices”: “Biden enters the presidency with at least a dozen lawsuits waiting over Trump-era moves to lower drug prices, an issue the new administration will likely tackle in its own way.

“The Department of Health and Human Services under Biden inherits challenges to rules that tie drug reimbursement to cheaper foreign drug prices and allow medication imports from Canada. It also faces complaints over Trump’s push for drugmakers to ship discounted drugs bought by low-income health centers to commercial contract pharmacies.” Trump signed four executive orders in July that directed the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “[e]nd a shadowy system of kickbacks by middlemen that lurks behind the high out-of-pocket costs many Americans face at the pharmacy counter,” the department announced at the time, noting that they would provide Americans more options on purchasing the drugs.

During the signing ceremony, Trump said the high price of insulin and EpiPens have cut off low-income people in “desperate” need of the treatments. “The four orders I’m signing today will be on the prescription drug market in terms of pricing and everything else to make these medications affordable and accessible for all Americans,” said Trump, surrounded by health care professionals. “The first order will require federal community health centers to pass the giant discounts they received from drug companies on insulin and EpiPens directly to their patients. You know insulin became so expensive people weren’t able to use it. They desperately needed it.”

Read more …

Shouldn’t adding states require a two-thirds majority?

Democrats Introduce Senate Bill To Make D.C. The 51st State (Turley)

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and other Democratic senators are introducing a bill for D.C. statehood today, a proposal with heavy opposition in the public in continuing polls. Indeed, the bill was one of the reasons that members and advocates demanded the killing of the filibuster rule to force through the change in status based on a bare majority. If successful, it would give the Democrats two more senators in a city-state that will expected to remain reliably blue. I have testified repeatedly on this issue. There are strong arguments for changing the status of the District and statehood is a viable option. It would clearly be constitutional unlike past proposals. The question is whether it is the best option for the country. Roughly 20 years ago, I proposed a “modified retrocession plan” that would be an alternative if the Congress wanted full voting rights for citizens of the District.


The proposal would make create the first city-state in our history with a population of 700,000. However, half of the country opposes the idea. A new Harris/Hill poll shows fifty-two percent of respondents said they favored statehood while 48 percent said they opposed it. That is heavy opposition for such a statehood change. [..] The debate over D.C. statehood is a complex issue with historical, constitutional, and legal dimensions. It is also an issue with important and unresolved racial issues of a black-majority city without direct representation in Congress. I have previously voiced my view that such lack of representation for the District is unacceptable and untenable in our country.

Read more …

And giant bags of money.

Wall Street To Require Traders Wear A Top Hat And Monocle (BBee)

Stock exchanges on Wall Street, together with brokerages and the SEC, have instituted new rules to stop the wrong people from winning in the stock market. In particular, there is a new dress code for those looking to trade stocks. To protect against market volatility, the SEC has banned from trading anyone who doesn’t dress up like the Monopoly Man and carry around giant bags of cash. This rule is enforceable whether you are trading in person or online, with apps requiring you to send a picture of yourself holding bags and bags of cash or gold bars to prove you’re rich enough to trade. “We are making this change to keep the poors out,” said an SEC spokesperson. “There were too many smelly poor people trading stocks, when the stock market was always intended just to help the rich people make more money. Now that the big investors started losing, we are changing the rules of the game. Don’t make us flip the game board over — we’re warning you!”

Read more …

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle January 29 2021

Viewing 32 posts - 1 through 32 (of 32 total)
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  • #69006

    Gustave Courbet The wave 1870   • Suck It, Wall Street (Matt Taibbi) • GameStop Soars 75% After-Hours After Robinhood Lifts Trading Ban (ZH) • Ja
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle January 29 2021]

    #69007
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Gustave Courbet The wave 1870

    Nice, but far from great, IMO…

    As I said on DR 28; no vaccine for us, the whole thing is a bloody cluster fuck.
    We will continue our D3, V-C (4grams/day), healthy diet, and common sense…

    #69008
    Dr. D
    Participant

    From yesterday, they stopped trading as illegal market rigging, then didn’t. Sort of. Because like all other exchanges, they just fabricate stock, fabricate shorts, in the world’s biggest blizzard of illegal counterfeiting that goes right to the top in making up multi-billions in Treasury Bonds that don’t exist. And they’re the collateral the whole system is based on, as you can see for decades with DTCC, Cede & Co., and “The Crime of the Century”, all well-known.

    Problem: It’s options expiry today. WSE are on the right side of the trade as they’re long : it’s the SHORT side that has infinite exposure, and they’ve warned “We can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” You can’t stop them because they don’t have expiration, don’t have the stock, and at a couple hundred bucks for entertainment, don’t care if they lose.

    They are reported at $1B per $11 over say $40. It’s at $200. And that’s just one: the $70B comes from the range of all companies’ top-shorts attacked by the pygmies. $70B may be more than lost in ’08 mortgages and they weren’t lost in one day.

    Okay, next problem: You know how they were both open counterfeiting and hypothocating stock 300:1? Well the next bank up the line is doing that too. Suppose — and try not to choke laughing — that the bank above Citidel is leveraged only 10:1 on the bank loans to the hedge fund. Now that’s $700 Billion. OTHER banks are interconnected exposure that bank, and have to adjust their exposure to a bank now lacking $700B in collateral.

    This is what happens when your whole system is fraudulent.

    As Michael Burry said. When the whole thing is a pyramid scheme that also must infinitely compound or else synthesize an unnecessary war to wipe the debts off the slate.

    Okay suppose — suppose — that unceasing in-your-face rules-rigging and collusion preserve the system today. Great. What happens next? WSE just goes “Aw shucks, guess I’ll keep playing anyway”? No. So now they, and huge number, lose interest and leave. Hole in the market. Compounded 10:1.

    Now one of the participants is Bar Stool Sports. As said, he’s only in this because the dum-dums shut down all sports trading he used to do with their fake Covid intervention. So when they shut down his Stock trading with newer, larger fake interventions, where will he go with all his friends? Not Wall Street, that’s for sure. Not commodities, not FTSE. How about Crypto? That is reportedly a semi-free market where the little guy is allowed to win.

    So you let the system crash, you lose. You DON’T let the system crash, you lose. Because you lost when you made the system have nothing but fraud in it, it still wasn’t enough, and leveraged your fraud 1,000:1. On a real economy that’s probably not $9T.

    It’s going to be a great day.

    #69009

    Both Apple and Google have removed 500,000 negative reviews each of Robinhood? Did I read that right?

    #69010
    Germ
    Participant

    For many, she may sound a little too kooky – but giver her 5-10 mins to get going. She’s predominantly talking sense – especially about all the treatments/supplements that we all know to be effective:

    Dr Merrit is the past president of the AAPS “Assosiation of American Physicians and Surgeons.” Among her many accomplishments, she completed her internal medicine internship at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland and spent 10 years as a military surgeon.

    https://www.brighteon.com/b95f1834-1283-4866-b16e-fb6bf9092aeb

    #69011
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    Okay, so not everyone was sound asleep. Some just needed stronger or faster acting espresso.

    Jubilation over the GAMESTOP skirmish is understandable (it’s been a long time since we hit the bastards at or near the waterline) , but brothers and sisters outright celebration is very premature. Please do not let it be fatally so.

    I remind you : ” The squids may be scared shitless at the moment ( they ARE scared shitless ) but they will soon come to their senses and shoot that dusky old swan exactly the same way that they did with the last populist uprising. They will cut it off and shut it out. ( I refer to the Trump/MAGA populist uprising.) . Team Squid OWNS the machine. It will censor, block and criminalize the communications network ( i.e. the Internet ) that made it possible in the first place. New laws and old tricks are being strategized for swift implementation at this very moment.

    And in this manner the insane will both delay the immediacy of the coming Global Civil War , and make it more inevitable, uncontrolled, and violent. Those who the gods would destroy they first make powerful. The insanity part is just a consequence of that. . . as is the “destroyed” part.

    In other words, don’t shoot where they WERE , shoot where they are going to be when the bullet arrives. LEAD THE TARGET ! GAMESTOP is fine and great, please do continue. But do you think for an instant that the squids are going to just let that stand ? You KNOW they will counter attack with everything they’ve got. , so what you all should be doing NOW is launching strikes that are pre-emptive to the predictable moves that they are going to make. (That they have already started making, actually)
    Side Note: vampire squid are virtually devoid of innovation and creativity ( to use old Hippy Speak, it’s just “not where they’re at”). First they will de-voice, de-platform and censor. Then they will put heads on pikes as warnings to others. Then they will pass bat-shit-crazily-unjust-laws. And finally they will neutralize and/or murder Ring Leaders. Expect suicide rates to uptick for a while.

    It’s a war. Bad guys fight back with the power and weaponry at their disposal. Shoot them THERE.

    P.S.
    Thank you for the supportive thoughts, words and sentiments after my last (and probably a little too snarky, posting here.) I’m off again for a while. I have some extremely time consuming work ahead of me. I promise to lurk faithfully , and maybe even post from time to time.

    Oops, I almost forgot (forgive the fib). What’s a Going Away Party without a song ? I reckoned that our sweet sorrow should be commemorated with music.  The chorale is performed from the view point of your new Eurasian Techno-Commie bosses( plus good old Joe ! ) and is sung to the tune of  “Winter Wonderland” .  For best effect ,  imagine this swan song of democracy being crooned in the powerfully honeyed tones of Johnny Mathis.

    NSA, they ‘re a-listenin’
    Bankers’ eyes, are a-glistenin’
    The people in fright
    We’re happy, alright
    This is our dark winter wonderland.

    Privacy is a new word
    Lies Are Truth, haven’t you heard?
    When we say it’s wrong
    You best play along
    Cause this is our dark winter wonderland.

    In the Whitehouse we can put a straw man
    You pretend he’s sane and loves the poor
    He’ll ask how you like all the policemen
    Now that they are breaking down your door !

    So be good, don’t conspire
    Don’t say we are all liars
    The payoff’s been made
    Too bad, I’ m afraid
    That this is our dark winter wonderland

    #69012
    Mr. House
    Participant

    DBENTONSMITH

    This is a teaching moment and very valuable. Those on the left who also hate wallstreet but have been blinded by an even greater hatred of Trump can be shown now why any censorship is bad. Because it will not be only the people they disagree with who will be censored.

    #69013
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Benton, don’t forget the other rule: Don’t hit them where they’re strong. Hit them where they’re weak. Clearly they are strong in politics and social media.

    Second part, Don’t hit them where they expect and prepare. Hit them where they didn’t think you were fighting. Like pretending you’re WSB, mingling in with them, and suddenly taking out Wall Street/Squid with plausible deniability. Have the whole system collapse ’cause Joe was sleeping. Explain how you can fix GME in 2 hours but can’t get a $2000 check in a year. Then have him explain why we sensor all opinions on stock, sell stock that isn’t ours, and “Hedge Fund Manager Lives Matter”.

    So, after they lose the cash they use to pay the blackmail, are you stronger or weaker? Could you do this if you were the President, or should the other guy take the fall? Just thinking thoughts, sorry, I’ll do better.

    As ego, what this is showing is, you can ONLY like what they like, and you can ONLY short what they short. All other opinions are illegal and will be punished. How do you think that’s going to go over now that the tactics used on one side are rolled out population-wide?

    Living grand is the greatest revenge.

    #69014
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    “They’re [the hedgefuks] also getting dragged out into the sunlight.” – Greenwald

    Yes, this is the big win here, not that a group of organized retail investors drew Wall Street blood. It’s just one more corrupt elite institution exposed for what it truly is, standing in all its naked ugliness for the public to gawk at and ridicule.

    “People have to go to jail, plain and simple.” – Dave Portnoy

    Dave, Dave, I understand where you’re coming from, but haven’t you been paying attention? Only little people are inducted into the gulag system of for-profit prisons. Everyone in the “Big Club” has a Get-out-of-jail Free Card. Look inside of the game box for the instructions.

    “Are there any plans to recuse herself [Yellen] from advising the President on GameStop and Robinhood situation?” – Reporter

    Here we go again. More people thinking that everyone should play the game by the same set of rules. What don’t they understand about $800,000 speaking fees? Do they really think Janet Yellen is that entertaining a speaker? That she knows the location of Montezuma’s hidden treasure? No, this is protection money, bribery, corruption. It’s times like this when favors are called in for those exorbitant speaking fees. Watch The Godfather again for a refresher course.

    #69016
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Mr. House

    Yeah. As you said, that old “Left” and “Right” thing rears its shaggy head at the strangest times, doesn’t it ? Wonder why that is.

    Left and Right are not simply fuzzily ill-defined political labels. They are the broad sweeping terms we use to categorize life’s strategy preferences. “Left” describes strategies which favor the powerless, and “Right” designates those which help those with some power to hang on to it.

    Of course, as the powerless gain strength they start doing stuff to keep what they have attained. In other words, they start acting like the Right-wingers they originally accused of doing the same damned thing.

    Same goes for the other side, the so-called “Right”. As the once powerful fall from omnipotence they are forced by reality itself to adopt “Lefty” strategies, such as ganging up , grabbing free money and hyper-organizing to enable them taking down a more powerful foe.

    That’s why the Chinese proverb advised , ” Choose your enemies carefully, for you shall become them.”

    And so it goes. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop . Back and forth. The revolving cycle used to take centuries. Now it takes merely years (Thanks for the help, Internet ). Incidentally , it was the Internet that upset the delicate balance this time around. It’s swift, cheap and ubiquitous enablement of communications between common folk suddenly gave populists a very disproportionate advantage. The powerful saw the threat coming, and their solution was to take even more power away from the already powerless, who became genuinely alarmed, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture.

    In its most visibly active phase we call this oscillation a Revolution ! . . . but in actual fact it has always been a perpetually ongoing thing. Lot’s of metaphors. Very few solutions. Only ONE solution, actually.

    That only solution is for you to understand it . Force yourself to become aware of what IS , and what the hell is going on around you. You cannot end the swinging of the pendulum between power and powerlessness . . . but with massive quantities of awareness and wisdom you can , eventually, restore an almost acceptable balance. . . and not get cut in half by the pendulum as it sweeps past us there in the pit we’re all trapped in.

    #69017
    Mr. House
    Participant

    “That only solution is for you to understand it . Force yourself to become aware of what IS , and what the hell is going on around you. You cannot end the swinging of the pendulum between power and powerlessness . . . but with massive quantities of awareness and wisdom you can , eventually, restore an almost acceptable balance. . . and not get cut in half by the pendulum as it sweeps past us there in the pit we’re all trapped in.”

    I agree with this 100%

    #69018
    Mr. House
    Participant

    DBENTONSMITH

    I also think you feel as i do, How much longer must we discuss this on the internet? We’ve been doing it going on a decade now and what good has it done us? Well we understand the pendulum better now, but perhaps you a chomping at the bit for some action?

    #69019
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    When the internet was just mainstreaming in the mid-90s, and I was young and gay, I rhapsodized about an online tax revolt via the ability of peer-to-peer broadcast allowing consensus in the tens of millions to form overnight.

    Instead, we got spam.

    However competent and honest this financial storming of the Bastille proves to be overall, it’s making my day. And I have a toothache. And I’m old. And I was sick as a child.

    Black swans are becoming so commonplace we hardly recognize them anymore.

    Giddiness unnerves me. I’ll listen to this to bring me down. It sounds as bad as its name:

    King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

    ^&*

    This is now the dark winter wonderland of our discontent?

    Where are they strong? Other than the internet/grid, only in our minds, really. Which we can change. Meanwhile, their internet/grid is increasingly susceptible to hostile foreign manipulatiion.

    Evaporating their funny money is unsettling and embarrassing to them, but it’s only funny money. Evaporating its foreign reserve status, why, that might get someone’s attention. If the earnest players behind this Attack of the Rhemorae are looking to cascade such an effect to a negotiated surrender between USA/China’s de facto currency war with Russia happy to play counterbeam balance via its solid physical resource base/currency/industry/technosphere/military advantages, I’m way too happy.

    What to do? What one will wish one had done when the power becomes unreliable, likewise, water. Be near fuel and water. Lots of things are edible… if you have fuel and water.

    #69020
    Dr. D
    Participant

    As I say many times, I disagree. The Left is amazingly rich, entitled, and powerful, master oppressors of the small and working for decades: look at Silicon Valley, or all California, NY governor, and Feinstein/Pelosi. So that part doesn’t work if it every did.

    The broad difference isn’t power, race, whatever, it’s collectivists vs individualists. And for whatever that gets you. Collectivizing gets Social Media power they use to buy personal flights to Epstein Island and collude to prevent law enforcement, and never use power to help the workers of Flint, whose collective Governor just paid a mere $1,000 to poison them all for years. The base simply believes the other, upper collectivists help people because they themselves would. But they deceive themselves because they don’t. Conservatives in fact donate more to charity by multiples. Voluntarily.

    The Right is individualist. That means they want to keep what they make and not share. …Not share involuntarily. As above they are actually share more year after year, which is deeply embarrassing. I thought the Left cared for others so much? More against those greedy, selfish people over yon?

    But it’s not as simple as it seems either. They donate more because they produce more. They produce more because they are individualists, and have control. Their systems are not run by the committee of workers of the proletariat, but one guy acting fast, where it ain’t a democracy. You don’t get a vote. You get a job. If you don’t like it make your own Twitter and YouTube. Oh wait, they did and they’ve gone up 700% in four weeks. Facebook lost $70B. That’s individualism. That’s free, equal access and competition.

    So the cut line is collective thinking vs individual thinking, but there’s more. Individuals already DO collective thinking and are branching out because we’re all BORN in collective thinking — our families — and have to collectively think of them all the time. I feel that collectivists do not. They remain as children, without developing themselves to the next step of individual work and responsibility, kuleana. “I accept my responsibilities [work, rules] and wish to be held accountable [bankruptcy].” Individual work, sacrifice, and danger. Children do not do this, they avoid consequences, nor men unless they are forced to it.

    Of course other people feel differently, but since it’s not race, lineage, or power, where else would the cut line be Left to Right? Does it mean nothing at all anymore, as sometimes seems?

    This matches the other studies that the Right understands the Left, because they use 5 categories, but the Left can’t understand/predict the Right, because they only use three.

    #69021
    Mr. House
    Participant

    I also agree with you Dr. D

    I am very individualistic myself. Why have someone else do something for me which only complicates the situation when i can do it myself. But i also believe that one way of doing things is never the right answer. It needs to be a hybrid between collectivism and individuality.

    #69022
    zerosum
    Participant

    Listen all yu old farts. Time to learn from the kids in mom’s basements
    https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/
    Please read!!! This text will be the most important piece that you’ll see today!!!

    They didn’t exit any of their short positions! You can look it up!!! The fund sold their shares to other funds, which made the stock algorithm think the stock is being sold —> price goes down —> the found that bought sells those shares again to the fund that sold them in the first place —> price drops even more —> they keep doing that —> price drops lower every time —> but as long as we hold they weren’t able to exit any positions!!! Shorts are still up 120% percent. As long as we hold the squeeze is inevitable!! And if you don’t believe me, look at the GME after hour stock price!
    ———
    Why This Weekend Is So Crucial…
    Discussion
    Ok listen up retards… I know it’s Friday and some of you short-term monkey brains are thinking about bailing on your brothers. Your paper hands are beginning to cramp up. I get it. BUT WE CANNOT SELL!

    There are still MASSIVE amounts of shorts on $GME. Still well over 113% of total shares floated (from S3 Partners). Some old shorts have gotten out, but many NEW shorts have taken their place in the past couple of days hoping that $GME will die out.

    Here is the key part…
    They are literally PRAYING for us to sell our shares and end this entire thing today. They are HOPING that they can make back their money at our expense… BECAUSE EVERY SINGLE DAY THAT THEY HOLD THEIR SHORT POSITIONS IS COSTING THEM BILLIONS OF DOLLARS COLLECTIVELY!!!

    BILLIONS A DAY.
    All we need to do is HOLD. That’s it. We will cost them so much money today, next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and on and on. Soon enough they won’t be able to pay the cost of their shorts or it just won’t be worth the cost anymore and they will all eventually have to bail. THAT IS GOING TO BE THE SQUEEZE. Once the costs keep adding up, they will start to bail and the rest will follow.

    WE MUST STAY STRONG. DON’T FORGET WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO US. IT’S A GAME OF CHICKEN. WHOEVER BLINKS FIRST.. LOSES.
    We’re not fucking blinking.

    TL/DR: HOLD. HOLD. HOLD. THIS WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK IS CRUCIAL!
    (Not financial advice. Entertainment only)

    1.0k Comments

    #69023
    madamski cafone
    Participant

    My, what a lot of mighty moral presumptions you wield, Dr.D.

    Society has been built of individual collectivists and collectivist individuals since long before our tails started shrinking as our brains fattened. They are as interwoven as Ron Carter and Tony Williams in this chestnut of the canon:

    Footprints

    It’s a symbiotic and very broad Venn overlap genetically/culturally as old as warm-blooded vertbraes (and yes, natural evolution IS gynoconcentric, why do you ask? 😉 ). Any one of us is personally more individual than collectivist. Anyone of us is “politically” way more collectivist than not, something to do with the ‘polis’ whence comes politics.

    The difference is technology and resoure quality/availability. Wealth is energy and matter manipulated by intelligence, and wealth is power relatively proportional to its size. So we have had, for a good decamillennia, a history of a very few INDIVIDUALS ruling a very large COLLECTIVE via concentration of wealth into their fisty little fingers. The common man wouldn’t know what to do with a Visi-Sonor if Hari Seldon handed one to him in a package signed With Love, Ayn Rand and a manual on PsychoHistory by William Vidal and Gore Buckley. But your average sociopath, like Ayn Rand, does: empower ME over the crude unruly lazy masses who “just want to be left alone”, is their answer. The Royal Me.

    Yeah, we all just want to be left alone. What about it? The whole existence of politics is that humans will not leave other humans alone. Period. If only for some new genes to replenish their tribal stock. (Ah, grown men fighting for pussy. Ain’t it romantic? *sigh*)

    So you’re farming your furburger patch or whatever your tribe grows for food, and a buncha yahoos from over the hill ride down on their horsies and do as they will. Well then, Something Must Be Done. We form protective coalitions that soon turn into the collection rackets we’ve been calling government since long before Yahweh first decided it would be interesting if those monkey-men would cut off their weiner-tips as a kind of loyalty love tattoo to Him. (Think of circumcision as a kind of vaccine passport.)

    Ah, yes. Ideologies. The pouting peripheries we peek out from when we’re willing to dare a peek at raw reality:

    Right or Wrong

    #69024
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Mr House

    I’m not chomping at the bit for action, I’m galloping out of a burning barn for safety.

    There is about to be more action than anyone ever wanted, not even the Bad Guys .

    Incidentally, and what I did not get around to saying in my previous post, the Bad Guys ( Team Squid, if you will) are the amoral operators ( just another category of human being) who have mastered the dark arts of controlling both “Left” AND ” “Right” (at once and in tandem) for their own benefit. It’s easier than pie . It’s easier by far than you think. Only moderately normal intelligence is required, BUT there is one very big catch. To do it well the operator must be legally insane ( i.e. unable to tell the difference between right and wrong). In a word : psychopath.

    #69025
    Mr. House
    Participant

    ” I’m galloping out of a burning barn for safety.”

    That’s why i’m moving out of the city. Too many kool-aid drinkers and they’re beginning to get dangerous. Politics and covid have replaced religion since they killed god and people need to fill that hole. In a work townhall and a MD essentially said you will need a vaccine booster shot every year and they expect biz will mandate employees get it. sigh, the night just keeps getting darker and darker. Feels like we’re living in a poorly written and “acted” hollywood bmovie.

    #69026
    laudyms
    Participant

    In your haste to pass along zingers- you seem to miss what’s really going on?
    https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/verify/verify-biden-administration-insulin-costs/531-57ea96f8-bcbf-412e-8d25-6aaaa37319b4

    #69027
    Mr. House
    Participant

    Ha Wolf just deleted a thread saying the economy was gonna collapse before covid due to a comment of mine that was in moderation since 11 AM. Who’s got an agenda?

    #69028
    Mr. House
    Participant

    SUCH COURAGE!

    #69029
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @madamski

    While you’re burning the hapless Dr D at the stake let me throw another torch onto the pyre. (my apologies Doc) . Doc has a good mind and an honorable heart but he also has an ideological disability : he’s ideological . He’s conservative (i.e. good) and his opponents are liberals (i.e. not so good. Bad, even) Controlling his behaviors is as easy as threatening his ideological position. If I own all of the mass media and most of the Internet that’s awfully easy to do. Just cram the comm waves with stories about millions of un-vetted illegal non-English speaking socialist Democrat voters are streaming across the Southern border to lower wages, drain the social welfare system, screw things up in general and and pave the roads to full blown communism. Bam ! He’s up in arms spoiling for a fight.

    I can do the same thing to the other side, the Liberals. All it takes is 24/7 saturation bullshitting about those scary fuckin’ MAGA rednecks. I can say anything I want to. No lie too big no truth too small. Scaring the pants off Liberals is ( literally !) child’s play. I bet there’s more than one soft-hearted semi-commie who is wracked by the guilt of sleeping with a hand gun on the nightstand because they actually are terrified that tattooed right wing hillbilly’s are about to violently overthrow the government.

    See where I’m going with this ? There is NOT just the Left and the Right. They’re just the slave labor. It’s the THIRD category that runs the show, and they control the action by playing those two sides against each other. Slick, really, when ya think about it. I haven’t come up with a really catch label for them just yet. Taibbi’s “vampire squid ” ain’t bad . . . just takes too long to say.

    Anyway, getting back to the topic, There is logic and there is ideologic. Logic is better because it can flex to accommodate reality. Ideology, on the other hand, and even in the hands of a genius, is like brittle iron. Strong only to its limit . . . and then shatters in useless bits.

    #69030
    kultsommer
    Participant

    Per my brief scan, it’s been a while since Dr D posted his beloved “c” and “s” words, even though I can feel the itch in his fingers.

    Brilliant string of financial articles about something that did not change in decades. Humor for us to indulge, money for them.

    Good to notice recently, that there are quite a few interested in the FIRST thing posted daily on TAE.

    #69032
    Tree Frog
    Participant

    In no meaningful sense do the Democrats represent “left” or the Republicans represent “right” – they are one with the “center”. So the left and the right appear to be coming together against the “center”? Maybe. Evolution in action. How is that not going to result in complex discontinuities?

    #69033
    Rototillerman
    Participant

    Apropos of the recent fireworks in GME, Melvin Capital, etc, this one never gets old:

    Gene Burnett: Jump, You F*ckers

    Credit to Karl Denninger at the Market Ticker for introducing me to that video/song.

    #69034
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @Tree Frog

    The Republican’s rhetoric (and phony public image) is “Rightish” and the Democrat’s’ rhetoric (and phony public image) tries to be as “Leftish” as they can manage. In the end it is only their actions that really matter or reveal side of the so-called center they’re really on. In other words, it’s not unusual for them to speak with forked tongue. Watch what they do, instead. Labels can be a little bit helpful, but only a little. It all looks confusing because we’re overloaded with rhetoric, propaganda , phony images and labels . . . being originated from their higher ups .

    To see which side of the divide an individual is really one just watch their feet, hands and money management. The powerless who want more will tend to adopt Leftish strategies as the most effective means competing with a more powerful adversary. The powerful will tend towards Rightish strategies (Rightish) to put down the challengers and retain what they feel is rightfully theirs.

    Who’s got the power and who don’t ? What strategies are their preferred strategies. Chairman Xi , for example spouts Communist propaganda (words and theater) like a Renaissance fountain . . . but he’s a straight up Nazi in his thoughts , deeds and financial affairs.

    The ones to really look out for are the ones who play both ends against the middle. They don’t discriminate much, they’re happy to eliminate or anyone , by getting a Lefty or Righty to do it for them. What can ya say ? They’re psychopaths.

    #69035
    VietnamVet
    Participant

    This will be a long weekend. $800,000 paid to Janet Yellen buys the freedom for hedge fund rescuer Citadel to do anything they want. Just as millions of Americans lost their homes after 2008 financial crisis, retail investors are going to lose every penny they put into the Robinhood App. But this time thanks to infinite leveraging with derivatives and naked shorting, Wall Street crashes for good. Just as with the Coronavirus Pandemic, the federal government today is too incompetent and corrupt to save the big casino or protect its citizens.

    The veterans of the Storming of Capitol Hill are afraid and traumatized. Scared shitless of the other cult members in the Chambers. Pacification of 75 million American Trump voters is their #1 priority. The Empire is gone. The 50-state Union is next.

    #69036
    WES
    Participant

    What the governing elite are really afraid of is if the steeple were to consider only silver and gold as real money.

    Yes, the elite’s leveled up unstable “house of fiat” is deathly afraid of real money.

    The Robinhood folks are simply attacking the levered up “house of fiat” using the same leverage!

    They merely have to find the “straw” that breaks the “house of fiat’s” back!

    #69037

    “That’s why the Chinese proverb advised , ” Choose your enemies carefully, for you shall become them.””
    I think I’ll “Paperclip” that to my notebook.

    #69038

    Who’da thought financial markets could be so much fun. You go, you tiny traders, you!
    I suppose the Deep State will have to come up with some fake extremist groups called “the Hedge Boys” or “the Day traders” so they can ban posts that use those hateful words.
    In the meantime, it looks like the Big Guys have a problem on their hands.

    #69058
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    @my parents said know

    It’s just fascinating ain’t it ? We know that the Big Guys absolutely must stop the populist rebellion that has clearly breached the gates of the counterfeit empire. Failure to staunch the hemorrhage ends in certain death for the empire. And yet the bleedout continues unabated… so far ! What weapon will the empire finally use to kill these peasants ? At first I was sure the weapons would be exclusion, censorship and ban. Now I’m thinking it might be a little more “High Tech” .

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a straight up prediction. I predict that the empire will use its near total ownership-control of the Internet (wires, servers, mainframes ,software, networks and everything) to route ALL buying and selling of stock (etc) through a new and proprietary FIREWALL, which allows approved traffic to go through and non-approved traffic to NOT go through. Only government approved trades (buys and sells) would be able to enter or leave the actual market (if you could even call such a monstrosity a “market”).

    We are fast approaching the state of affairs in which the worlds entire “official” economy is nothing but an enormous computer simulation of a market. Members get paid. Non members will get bupkis (or less). No more uncertainty or stock market crashes !! No more of a lot of things, actually.

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