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GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

stephendiehl.com

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Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#41

Post by maerF0x0 »

mrslave wrote: post #13
maerF0x0 wrote: post #2

> It’s not surprising that when it comes to their investment strategies, that the “you only live once” philosophy and a preference for high-risk high-return investments is preferred. What has this generation got to lose? That is pure irrationality. IMO The real issue is a crap education system which gives neither opportunity, nor good advice-- instead of training rational actors w/ valueable skills it focuses on buil…

> IMO The real issue is a crap education system which gives neither opportunity, nor good advice The nihilism of YOLO has little to do with schooling. A broken education system is well after the fact of the economic and social reality constituting their environment. The young today have impossible economic hurdles: unaffordable shoebox apartments, high student debt, no incentive to save, no good jobs for modest tasks…

> no incentive to save

I highly disagree with this. The S&P 500 has returned 400% since the crash in a mere 12 yrs. If doubling your money every 6 years does not sound excellent to you, the it's a financial education that is lacking, not real opportunity.

> in-person communities are fractured by many different spoken languages

I actually have found this really enjoyable, to have lots of opportunity to speak/learn Spanish.

> cultural promotion of pornography, sex, and drugs. Given how these affect the reward centers of the brains, IMO these should all be reserved as post success rewards. If someone wants to smoke weed all day and do nothing, that sucks. But if they're high achieving and want to relax _after_ killing it, who are we to tell them no?

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#42

Post by pydry »

sudosysgen wrote: post #36
hintymad wrote: post #28

> Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short. Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. But why? Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Why…

If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.

It's not far off for graduate jobs already.

Unionization will fix this. A glut of STEM candidates will not.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#43

Post by AI_WAIFU »

dragontamer wrote: post #23
Judgmentality wrote: post #3

> And so we see Gamestop story fall out of that. In a nutshell a bunch of retail investors (possibly with help from institutional insiders) decided to pump a small cap stock far beyond what the valuation of the company should be. This completely ignores the fact that the stock was shorted over 100% of float, and people knew it was going to squeeze so they bought in hoping to ride the wave. And that did in fact happen…

> This completely ignores the fact that the stock was shorted over 100% of float, and people knew it was going to squeeze so they bought in hoping to ride the wave. And that did in fact happen, although timing is everything. Except the squeeze failed at $400, and short interest was still above 100% as GME dropped below $50 by my understanding. As such, the short-interest story seems to be a weak argument for anything…

Yeah, but that's only because retail investors got locked out of the market at $400. The clearing houses spontaneously jacked up collateral requirements for the stock and almost every broker either locked investors out of trading or explicitly banned additional purchases of the stock.

You can actually compare the timings and see that the second this happened the price imploded.

If the market didn't lock up like that the shorts would have been completely annihilated. The populist play was a good one, but they we're playing a rigged game and the buyers found that out the hard way at the 11th hour.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#44

Post by hintymad »

sudosysgen wrote: post #36
hintymad wrote: post #28

> Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short. Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. But why? Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Why…

If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.

I'm fine with the norm. The norm is better than losing all hopes or a bleak future. The norm is a job that pays ordinary salary but gives me hope that I sharpen my skills and get rewarded accordingly (no guarantee, of course, but there's hope).

I'm grateful that STEM pays so well nowadays, but I don't mind if my pay goes back to norm in exchange for many people having a better future. I don't see the current K12 system will help, though.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#45

Post by cataphract »

solosoyokaze wrote: post #12

This could have an interesting point but it's lost in its anti-Bitcoin rhetoric. Bitcoin is like the lottery? It's up thousands of percent over the years. Many, many people have made real money and/or are sitting on massive gains. Regardless of if you think Bitcoin has actual utility (I think it does in spades), labeling it a "failure" means your argument is instantly ignored by every person who's up on their investm…

What the author says is:

> [Bitcoin is] a naked speculative bubble based on a technology that doesn’t scale can’t and [won't] replace any existing financial service

So that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, and provides no financial service of value. I don't think it's fully true, because Bitcoin facilitates underground transactions and is a practical asset in countries with high inflation and currency restrictions, but the fact that "some people made a lot of money" is no counterargument.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#46

Post by hintymad »

seibelj wrote: post #34
hintymad wrote: post #28

> Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short. Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. But why? Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Why…

If you have enough money you can move to a good public school district or pay for private school. If you are poor you must accept the monopoly school in your district - that is the rule. I myself enjoy having choices for myself and my children but that is a consequence of money. This is why I support school vouchers - let parents determine how to spend their money, and let schools compete for students.

Yeah, or like in other countries, teachers are subject to competition and can be replaced by better ones.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#47

Post by sudosysgen »

hintymad wrote: post #44
sudosysgen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.

I'm fine with the norm. The norm is better than losing all hopes or a bleak future. The norm is a job that pays ordinary salary but gives me hope that I sharpen my skills and get rewarded accordingly (no guarantee, of course, but there's hope). I'm grateful that STEM pays so well nowadays, but I don't mind if my pay goes back to norm in exchange for many people having a better future. I don't see the current K12 syst…

The norm is falling through time. Right now, the norm is fine, but in a few decades, the norm will be to barely be able to afford rent.

The way things are going, the norm is trending towards pretty bleak, yeah.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#48

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

sudosysgen wrote: post #36
hintymad wrote: post #28

> Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short. Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. But why? Why can't more kids get into STEM fields? Why…

If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.

Surely there must be some value in a more educated and capable population in and of itself?

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#49

Post by dragontamer »

bargl wrote: post #31
dragontamer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This completely ignores the fact that the stock was shorted over 100% of float, and people knew it was going to squeeze so they bought in hoping to ride the wave. And that did in fact happen, although timing is everything. Except the squeeze failed at $400, and short interest was still above 100% as GME dropped below $50 by my understanding. As such, the short-interest story seems to be a weak argument for anything…

No one knows. That's not public information. It doesn't take into account that at 400 shorting GME became a much more appealing idea than even at 20/share. Everyone knew 400/share was unmaintainable.

> No one knows. That's not public information.

% Short float is public information. And based on the discussions I've had online, it seems people are confused between %short float and %short outstanding.

> Everyone knew 400/share was unmaintainable.

Clearly not. My friend was buying in at that time, despite me arguing with him that he shouldn't. There's also plenty of retail-buys that occurred at $300 to $400: millions and millions of shares bought.

So plenty of people were buying at $300 and $400. That's just a fact. Retail purchases and retail volume by the way, is also public information. (Along with other indicators of volume: open interest to options for example)

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#50

Post by seibelj »

nonameiguess wrote: post #32
seibelj wrote: post #4

I find bitcoin to be the greatest innovation in finance in the 21st century, a watershed moment in economic development. For the first time any person can own a financial asset completely decoupled from any government. That’s the value proposition for me. It’s not nihilism - it’s optimism in the individual to succeed over the corrupt state.

You could already own land, houses, cattle, ownership shares in companies that produce useful goods other humans want, all things the government doesn't control. If the concern is the government could potentially seize control of those things, sure, but a sufficiently malicious government can seize control of you and no amount of magic numbers on a USB stick is going to stop them.

All of that is at the whim of governments and could be seized. If properly stored no one knows you even own bitcoin let alone would steal it. Land is probably the most dangerous asset of all from a fear-of-government perspective.
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