Capitalism is becoming crooked. One more time, see how capitalism shakes freedom and democracy!
Capitalism as an economic system alternative to forming a society has been universally accepted as the best option since the early twentieth century. No doubt capitalism has served the US and most other nations very well. Don't take me wrong and assume that I hate Capitalism when I make some points in this post. As time passes, it is becoming increasingly crooked. I mean it is turning into a form that does more bad than good to society and to the overall population. In a capitalist society, money is power, and that power can often be used to get more money, I mean more power. And when it comes to getting more money, generally, you have to directly or indirectly take it from someone else. unless you are the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve who can create money out of a vacuum ;) For all others, the money has to change pockets, these days it is more like changing bank accounts, from someone's account to your account.
Money has some rules and follows certain dynamics. It follows the law of gravity, too. More money pulls smaller money quicker. Forgive my English or grammar. In gravity, a larger object pulls the smaller object. Same way, 1 million dollars can pull another 10000 dollars much easier than a 1000 dollar can. I am trying to say that if you have $1m, you can probably easily make another $10k by lending, investing, trading, speculating, flipping, or corruption. However, with only $1000 in the pocket, you generally can't pull $10k with any of this- lending, investing, trading, speculating, flipping, or corruption. All of that is generally out of question for smaller pockets, common people. You have only a few options, to work hard, get a second job or be creative. There is one more thing that a 1 million dollar does for you to help pull more money. Lobbying. Influencing policymakers. Ability to make political donations, or influence lawmakers to have decisions and policies made in you, to your advantage. Money is power, after all, and with power, you can get things done your way. Let me get back to the main topic.
$GME and $AMC. Yesterday I was on a hike, and when I reached the top of the hill, I started checking prices. #GME was $125 and #AMC was $8. I wanted to buy some for my son who was with me, and for me, to our frustrations, Robinhood wouldn't even search on GME! They had blocked it. Then I tried MerrillEdge, but they wouldn't let me buy these stocks either. I am sure the same happened with many people who use brokerage accounts like Robinhood to invest and trade stocks. Not the case for Hedge Funds and billionaires! They don't use Robinhood or TDAmeritrade!! They have special access to trade directly, or through some institutional broker, and I am sure none of the trading restrictions applied to them!
I had clean cash in my account but I couldn't buy a stock at the right price, or when I wanted to buy it! My freedom was taken away, in the name of protecting me. This is how usually they play. They make it appear that they are doing a favor. To create some jobs, they need to have lower taxes. When you start a small business, you don't get any special treatment. If Amazon wants to set up a warehouse in your city, the city council offers a special package to the richest American, Jeff Bezos, and his 1.5 trillion dollar company.
The system (I mean the Crooked system) prevented me from making some money. However, we all know that in the #GameStop saga, #AndrewLefts and #Melvins of the world had probably all freedom to act the way they wanted. Not only that, they were allowed to sell the stocks they didn't even have!!!!! Many of us were stopped from buying at the dip by vested interests. Today also, most of us were prevented from creating new options positions! This was a #GammaSqueeze, and Options trading was the instrument for Main St to corner Wall Street. However, the Wall Street billionaires and the brokerages made the arsenal, weapon of the mass, the Main Street ineffective by not letting #Reddit and #WallSteetBets members take any new position, and that was in the name of saving the society ;)
What happened here? Big money pulled the small money into their accounts! This was a chance for the mass to punish the bad boys, but the bad boys were able to use their power/tactics, in an illegal way, and get things in their favor, even in this obvious case. Law of the Crooked Capitalism ;) Big boys were able to have a laugh at common traders, one more time.
One more odd thing: The billionaire owners of Robinhood should be prevented from using the name for their app. They are distorting the meaning implied by Robinhood, as we grew up knowing.
There are two twits that explain this crooked system effectively:
Yes you are right. I was prevented from buying calls and puts on $GME in spite of having money in my account. It's frustrating when these brokerages don't let you play the market on their terms.
ReplyDelete