Sometimes people ask, why do rich people keep striving for more money? What is the point of having $1B instead of $100M, or $10B instead of $1B, or $100B instead of $10B?
Sometimes the answer is given, that it's the same impulse as playing a computer game and money is the score.
But the last few days, something else occurred to me, watching the kind of disarray of various billionaire hedge fund types. A big attraction of wealth on that level must be the sense that you're smarter than nearly anyone else.
This situation punctures that and it seems like a lot of quotes in the news are about scrambling to save face and protect peoples' self images. I don't think they are actually outraged over monetary losses as such.
It's interesting that people are comparing it to Occupy Wall Street.
Characterizing this as a "rich folk" vs "common folk" issue is hilarious. Aside from the early "common folks" that cashed out, there's also plenty of "rich folks" that cashed out as well[1]. As for the losers, well the hedge funds who were shorted initially definitely lost money, although it remains to be seen whether the "rich folk" hedge funds who shorted this week lost money. It also remains to be seen whether the "common folks" that piled on this week are going make a profit or are just going to be bagholders.
This doesn't deserve to be downvoted. Lots of rich investors are using this as an opportunity to further enrich themselves. The narrative that this is "David vs Goliath" is only partially true; in reality it's Goliath vs Goliath, except one of the Goliaths has David strapped to his chest to absorb any blows.
> although it remains to be seen whether the "rich folk" hedge funds who shorted this week lost money. It also remains to be seen whether the "common folks" that piled on this week are going make a profit or are just going to be bagholders
My comment above makes no statement about who is going to eventually profit from this.
My comment is about how as soon as the "common folk" start to take their destiny into their own hands, the "rich folk" cry foul, to the point where Congressmen are issuing press releases, and there is talk of completely re-designing the entire system.
There is an awful lot of whining coming from one end of the wealth spectrum right now.
FYI by your own logic, you have no right to be upset about the RobinHood GME situation. Per your own logic, RobinHood is a private company, and they can do whatever they want...If you don't like it, you can build your own RobinHood!
RH is subject to a ton of federal regulations that social media isn’t. They legally cannot cut off one set off investors in order to enrich another. It’s a felony. We are not discussing free speech here.
It is kinda funny how the Constitutionally protected right doesn't have laws ensuring fair treatment, but stock trading does. Why should they have to allow for equal access to investors? Sure, the law currently requires it, but if we made a law saying First Amendment now applies to all private businesses people would be fine with it because it is now the law? I think not. So, given they are a private company, shouldn't they be free to do business with who they want and how they want?
As for the penalty of breaking the law, if it is enforced it will likely still have been the cheaper option for those who made the call.
Yeah, it’s a real shame that’s there is only one ISP in the whole world. If there was at least one more, maybe Pirate Bay wouldn’t have been killed in 2006.
Isn't it illegal to make your own financial system? I'm under the impression that it's one of the big levers of power the US government has (those "sanctions" you hear about), can't imagine them letting it be weakened.
Just build your own host bro
Just build your own financial banking system bro
just build your own social media platform bro
just build your own payment processing platform bro
just build your own internet infrastructure bro