Just to be clear, Wall Street $$$ (hereafter “$$$”) saw that the little people (hereafter “LP”) found a way into the castle, so, $$$ poured boiling hot tar onto the LP, and, then feathers, to put them in their place. How? This is the simplest breakdown I can give:
1. LP has a working knowledge of the markets. LP knows that, unlike LP, $$$ can engage in a “naked short,” which is where $$$ sells shares of stock that it doesn’t own, without even having to borrow those shares from someone who does own them (even LP could do this, but, LP isn’t that dumb/arrogant); bc,
2. If you buy a $100 stock, the most you can lose is $100, after $$$ naked shorts the entire company to $0, by selling shares it doesn’t own; BUT,
3. LP knows the risk of ANY kind of short, bc, if your plan (to sell borrowed stock at $100, trying to drive the cost to $0, so that you can return the “borrowed stock,” at a repurchased price of just above $0,) backfires, and the stock you sold for $100 shoots to the moon, you are out whatever the price goes up to – $1,000, $10,000, whatever, bc, even $$$ isn’t allowed to short a stock forever; in short… errr… in summary, a short poses limitless risk; and,
4. LP noticed that $$$ had STUPIDLY engaged in SO MANY naked shorts, that around 140% … yes, 40% more than the total amount of available stock had been shorted; so,
5. This meant that LP had a sure bet, if they could band together, and, they did. They cost $$$ tens of billions of dollars… so, just enough to piss $$$ off. so LP wins, right?
6. Wrong. $$$ shuts down all buying, so that only SELLING is allowed… but, who can buy what is being sold? Oh! Did I say ALL buying? No… that’s not correct. All buying for LP. $$$ was still able to buy. So, what did $$$ do? They bought. They repaid their borrowed shares, after they drove the price down.
7. They have excuses and justifications, but, remember, $$$ has crashed the entire economy – at least three times during my 38 year life, in fact. There was no halt to buying or selling when it was $$$ sinking the ship. There was only government bailouts… to $$$.
So, don’t tell me that there is a level playing field, bc, I don’t appreciate being lied to. Can anyone become the greatest success story ever in this country? Yes. You can also win the Powerball, but, not many educated people play that, either. The rags to riches story in America is no different than the Powerball story. A few will win, but, they have to possess the winning ticket. Everyone else is being sold a bill of goods, paying a price for a system designed to fund one group (Powerball = The Powerful and ultra wealthy, and the Powerball ticket holders represent the other 99% of us), with the promise that, “you, too, can be a winner!” Now, don’t get me wrong. In America, you can struggle to mediocrity; you can work hard to be able to leave a little bit to your loved ones when you die. But, the anecdote is supported by the data: wealth is rapidly consolidating in the hands of a few, while an ever increasing number struggle just to get by. We can fix it, by making the types of changes that our founders would have fought for, like Universal Basic Income (an idea then popularized by none other than the founding father inspirer, Thomas Paine) and, in so doing, we can eradicate so very many of the ills that America faces. Or, we could allow this thing to spiral into a bloody civil war, which will ruin the lives of most people on both sides, and, destabilize the entire world. But, whatever we go with, let’s drop the pretense that this thing is somehow anything other than a rigged game, at present.
thereluctantcommentator 