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A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
21–30 of 66 posts
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#22Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
There's a general moral of the story here that isn't specific to Wall Street. If you think you've got a magic hack for some system, don't forget that the system might not be immutable, and that many people will consider the spirit of the rules not just the letter of them (even if this means changing the letter of them). It's fairly similar to the risk of building a business by adding one feature to someone else's pla…
Yeah. It is very rare that a clever rules-lawyer-style hack of a game will let you defeat people in power because they usually have enough power to hop up a level and beat you at the meta-game and you do not.
Like Solo telling Luke to let the Wookkie win.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly the moral path is to let the market fail and implode. When the market is in danger, it’s foolish not to act to stabilize it. If robinhood collapsed into receivership, the outcome would be far worse for their customers.
> ...far worse for their customers. Doubt that, because given the overall politically charged sentiment around the squeeze, they would have declared Robinhood's demise a victory as well.
Idiots on Twitter would celebrate any chaos, but the customers would be waiting on SIPC for their money!
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#24There's a really good story on the stock corner of Piggly Wiggly in "Business Adventures", a book that Bill Gates said is his favorite business book. https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Business-Adventures
This is that article: Business Adventures is a collection of Brook's New Yorker articles
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#25Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
There's a general moral of the story here that isn't specific to Wall Street. If you think you've got a magic hack for some system, don't forget that the system might not be immutable, and that many people will consider the spirit of the rules not just the letter of them (even if this means changing the letter of them). It's fairly similar to the risk of building a business by adding one feature to someone else's pla…
This holds true, even when the system assures you that it is immutable. I recall when a hacker noticed a vulnerability in some Ethereum smart contracts and used it to "steal" ETHs, the transactions were swiftly reversed and the whole concept of "the code is the contract" was thrown out of the window in the process.
https://www.wired.com/2016/06/50-million-hack-just-showed-da...
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#26Another telling of this story + more stories: https://junto.investments/short-squeezes-and-market-corners/
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#27Another telling of this story + more stories: https://junto.investments/short-squeezes-and-market-corners/
the bear raiders managed to convince the stock exchange to intervene and suspend trading in Piggly Wiggly and later grant an extension for paying up
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#28Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
One solution would be for management to raise capital by issuing boatloads of new shares. They could explicitly say the capital is to pay themselves bonuses to buy mansions and yachts.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a general moral of the story here that isn't specific to Wall Street. If you think you've got a magic hack for some system, don't forget that the system might not be immutable, and that many people will consider the spirit of the rules not just the letter of them (even if this means changing the letter of them). It's fairly similar to the risk of building a business by adding one feature to someone else's pla…
This holds true, even when the system assures you that it is immutable. I recall when a hacker noticed a vulnerability in some Ethereum smart contracts and used it to "steal" ETHs, the transactions were swiftly reversed and the whole concept of "the code is the contract" was thrown out of the window in the process. https://www.wired.com/2016/06/50-million-hack-just-showed-da...
Wasn't the blockchain forked? So technically there is still a version of Ethereum out there that makes it easy for hackers to steal your stuff, but for some reason nobody wants to use that version.
Re: A Corner in Piggly Wiggly (1959)
#30Gamestop made me think of this. The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. Something to be cautious about in the current situation.
> The moral of the story is that when you beat Wall Street at their own game, they will change the rules on you so they win anyway. They didn’t change the rules. The rules are clear that they’re allowed to change the rules anytime they want. That’s one of the rules.
In this particular case I’m not sure actually; they changed contracts to allow a later date.