23 Comments
User's avatar
Susan's avatar

Wow, this does read like a populist screed. I'm surprised at Persuasion, frankly. The simplistic analysis of "insider vs. outsider"? And his reading of events is bolstered by the agreement of right populist Cruz and left populist Ocasio Cortez. Let's ignore what the broad center thinks about it all? I'd check out Matt Yglesias' section on gamestop in his article https://www.slowboring.com/p/good-vaccines. Or read this careful account at https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/the-gamestop-bubble/. And for Pete's sake can we please stop equating everything that happens with social media kicking people off their platforms.

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Stephen Allen's avatar

The description of what happened with Robinhood is irresponsibly poorly framed and explained. They had both very legitimate requirements for their own well being independent of any entanglements with insiders to do what they did AND it was clearly in the interest of their users who at that point not only could not count on their buys executing at anything near the share price when they placed the order but were likely to lose their shirts as the stock's elevated price was sure to collapse eventually and they were getting in late. The optics were terrible but the decision was extremely defensible and need not involve any corruption. Implying otherwise - which the context of this piece in my opinion does - is poor judgement.

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Travis's avatar

Doesn't your viewpoint stink of paternalism and judgement? You've assured yourself the price was too high. How are stocks priced? Based on how much demand there is compared to supply. So it's almost entirely based on future expectations. People are allowed to have different future expectations than you.

I've seen a TON of older people explain to younger people that the stock will decrease. This assumption is dangerous and shows a huge bias between age groups. I would not be so sure one group is more informed than another, but one certainly tells itself a story that falls in line with what the insiders want.

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Stephen Allen's avatar

Its been less than 24 hours since I responded to this. GameStonk is making a bunch of little guys who didn't know what they were doing lose huge portions of their money and its not done yet.

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Stephen Allen's avatar

"You've assured yourself the price was too high." seems in bad faith. I assume that you would not take any bet with any odds that $GME's value doesn't go down YOY from the day that decision was made. The only question is when it goes down.

The stock will go down in market cap. I would confidently wager my life on that. I worry about anyone who wouldn't.

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Tim Nesbitt's avatar

Strained comparisons abound. here. But if there is any relevance to recent political events in this GameStop experience, it's not little guy vs. big guy but a willful contest of alternative facts. Is this stock worth as much as we (my crowd) can will it to be worth or is its value to be eventually determined by its performance in a marketplace of many, larger crowds demanding verifiable results?

And to add a new analogy to the mix: I spent a lot of time studying and betting on horse races in my youth. Hot tips and insider information were the currency of the game. But, once the race was run, there were no alternative results, just one, verifiable at the cashier's window.

This is similar (the betting is pari-mutuel) and different (the race has no finish line). But, unless tired horses can run forever, this will not end well for the bettors, no matter whether big guys or little guys are ahead at the quarter pole.

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David O's avatar

I appreciated the article, in my ignorance of the past week and WallStreetBets, and it enlightening me on this front. I like underdogs and working 60 hour weeks and not having all the time I would like to research everything in the world of politics and our country am inclined to jump on the bandwagon here, of the writers take. I do take exception to the writers downplaying the Big Lie about the election being stolen, understanding he is referencing the need for those in power to buy into it, but 70% of the GOP voter base believes it and that is a problem.

Also, a previous commenter indicated they were surprised at Persuasion, as if Persuasion is responsible for the content of every article. My draw to Persuasion is the fact that we can hear everyone's side here and hopefully not just the left or just the right. Thank you!!

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A.W. Carus's avatar

No, this doesn't belong in Persuasion. Pure conspiracy-theory stuff (everything is "rigged" just as in Sanders and Trump). I agree whole-heartedly with the commenter above who pointed to Catherine Rampell's sane and dispassionate account of this sad episode of pseudo-empowerment in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/01/gamestop-is-not-morality-tale/). If your draw to Persuasion is that you wish to hear the delusive conspiracy theories on the left and right shouting at each other without a common basis in agreed facts, you're in the wrong place. First we have to establish, without resort to alternative facts based on conspiracy theories, what is actually going on. Right now, that seems to be that a lot of small investors are losing their shirts, after having got caught up in a typical social-media stampede. The author quotes one inciter of this stampede as saying "The only way to beat a rigged game is to rig it even harder.” I'm sure the SEC will have a word or two to say about this, eventually (it's been catastrophically slow in its response, perhaps because of Trump holdovers), since market-rigging is illegal in this country, as I hope it remains. Shame on the author for suggesting, on the grounds of his conspiracy theory that everything is rigged anyway, that it's ok for supposed outsiders (and it's becoming less clear by the minute that those who profited by the GameStop run-up were actually the little guys) to "rig the game even harder" -- that way lies madness. I very much hope that Persuasion's decision to publish this was a one-off mistake. If I see more of this kind of thing here, I'm leaving.

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Karen L.'s avatar

I signed up for Persuasion and Matt Taibbi's substack around the same time, as a way to support non corporate journalism. The respective comment sections on this topic, really shows the difference in the readership.

One: social media is toxic. Most people I've seen on the mainstream platforms became worse for wear over time. I deleted my accounts to save my sanity. HOWEVER, if you're going to censor for spreading for misinformation you'd need to delete 90% of the users on these platforms as nearly everybody is spreading some sort of half truth. Censorship is clearly applied with an agenda.

I'm not a day trader. But the writer's argument seems patent. The reddit traders knew what they were doing, they were prepared to lose to money. The only ones not prepared to lose money were the hedge funds, and big tech colluded with the gatekeepers, to keep the established order.

This incident has made me aware that my retirements savings... in fact nearly everyone's retirement savings are invested in what amounts to a gambling operation. And it's the only game in town. There is no other system. I think the reddit traders deserve applause for showing us what's really happening.

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Andrew Wurzer's avatar

The article raises a number of interesting points about censorship. However, I think it goes astray when it starts trying to use the Big Lie as a lens through which one can better understand the forces at play.

"After the storming of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, we heard a lot about the “Big Lie” perpetrated by Trump and his allies that the election was “stolen.” In reality, this narrative never got far. It was rejected by the media (including Fox News), thrown out by the courts, labeled by social networks as “disputed,” and dismissed by politicians, including Trump’s own vice president. Yes, some far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers came to Washington to commit acts of violence, but they were roundly denounced. For a Big Lie to be successful, it has to have buy-in from the people in power, moneyed interests, the narrative-framers in the media generally, all of whom have to benefit from the lie and therefore repeat it."

This analysis is unconvincing; at best, it significantly exaggerates the extent to which the narrative "never got far." I would suggest that the Big Lie of election fraud instead is an argument against Mr. Sacks' thesis: despite the dearth of buy-in by the elites, better than two thirds of the Republican party believed the lie. So many believed the Big Lie that the elites at the top of the Republican party were unwilling to gainsay their outsiders -- they *listened* to the outsiders. They listened to the outsiders and not the insiders, the moneyed interests and the media.

Further, I'm no expert on the full breadth of Fox News' content, but outside their news division, it didn't seem like they "rejected" the Big Lie. The most popular parts of Fox -- the opinion content, not the news -- was very sympathetic to the Big Lie (when they weren't outright amplifying it). Far from not listening to the outsiders, Fox frequently pandered to them.

The more I think about this, the more I think the Big Lie simply doesn't reflect the insider vs. outsider theory that Mr. Sacks uses to focus on censorship, to connect the GameStop manipulation by Robin Hood et al to the censoring reaction of social media to the Big Lie because they are not analogous. The Big Lie very much did enjoy powerful insider support; perhaps not from social media (eventually), and not from news media (mostly), but it certainly did from some popular news media, from over 100 congresspeople, and from the President of the US. I would hardly call the Big Lie an outsider.

For what it's worth, I share much of the trepidation about the kind of power those who run our social media have; yes, they own it, so they are free to manage it as they please. However, they are also natural monopolies with the attendant network effects, and should be regulated as such. I'm not sure what I think the limits of censorship should be.

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Charles Buell's avatar

Both buyers and sellers of GameStop are speculators, not interested in the intrinsic worth

of that stock. The "kids" who piled in on the attack could afford to lose their money, but they got a good education, while they were studying for their College Exams. (A slight exaggeration, but not much.) The slicing and dicing of legitimate stocks is the real "crime" here. I really want to have announcers say that "SPECULATORS (!) drove the market up today... (or down. Not INVESTORS!) These players don't care about the stock itself. The company got its money from the IPO and other stock offerings not from speculators yoyoing the price. High-level execs of a company do profit from the stock's movement, but that's a different story....

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Tim Nesbitt's avatar

Strained comparisons abound. here. But if there is any relevance to recent political events in this GameStop experience, it's not little guy vs. big guy but a willful contest of alternative facts. Is this stock worth as much as we (my crowd) can will it to be worth or is its value to be eventually determined by its performance in a marketplace of many, larger crowds demanding verifiable results?

And to add a new analogy to the mix: I spent a lot of time studying and betting on horse races in my youth. Hot tips and insider information were the currency of the game. But, once the race was run, there were no alternative results, just one, verifiable at the cashier's window.

This is similar (the betting is pari-mutuel) and different (the race has no finish line). But, unless tired horses can run forever, this will not end well for the bettors, no matter whether big guys or little guys are ahead at the quarter pole.

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Leslie's avatar

Dead on. Thank you.

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Terry Vance's avatar

My response will be short because I have read the two comments in front of mine and they are dead on. This is a trivial event and is broadly interesting mostly because most people have no idea what is going on, how to contextualize it, and whether it is important. Brief answer — it is not important.

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Travis's avatar

It's the most blatant expression of market manipulation in US history. How is that not important? We've all said, "The game is rigged." Now we have proof. If proof of how the insiders fuck the outsiders isn't important, I don't know what is. This is a *real* step towards cultural progress.

Think about it this way: If the shorts had won, gamestop, AMC and other companies would have eventually gone bankrupt. Now they can use share offerings to cover liquidity problems for post-covid life. And they did it with the wall street money that was attempting to destroy these companies. Wall street insider who think they're smarter than everyone. It's a positive, tangible way for the little guy to stick it to the moneyed interests.

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Terry Vance's avatar

I am going to make a wild guess and say that you have no training in economics and no experience in finance or investments. Which is okay, since there are much better things in life. I also don't think you are a historian. Not a lawyer either. Investors, big and small, lost a ton of money investing in these companies after their businesses began to fail for reasons which may have just been bad luck. A short seller cannot drive a business into bankruptcy -- it has to get there all on its own. These particular short sellers did not realize that someone would be smart enough to round up a bunch of lemmings and give them a map to a cliff. The way this story ends is that a lot of small investors (your "outsiders") are going to lose a ton of money through ignorance and the new story will be how banks and regulators did not protect them when they bought a bunch of GameStop shares at ridiculous prices. They will then find out that the real manipulators were their buddies on the message board who got them into this. By the way, this happens every day.

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Nadia Gill's avatar

While perhaps a short seller cannot fully drive a company into bankruptcy -- you go too far in saying it has to get there all on its own. Unfortunately, they can throw fuel on the fire pretty damn good these days. Many many investors admit this. Also what a dick move to say this guy doesn't have experience with finance, history, or law. He very well might and it wouldn't matter anyway as none of those professions are quantum physics.

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Michael Berkowitz's avatar

I am, shall we say, unpersuaded. A conspiracy of insiders who never talk and never turn on each other? Like all other large conspiracies, implausible in the extreme. "Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allowed far more content advocating for and planning the Capitol riot than Parler"? I read the link (okay, I skimmed it) and didn't see that claim backed up.

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Nadia Gill's avatar

I actually think that's true just based on whole numbers. They are much bigger platforms with more users than Parler so while a percentage of Parler might have been filled more Capitol Riot planning stuff they still can't beat the spread on Twitter/Facebook. I have heard this cited other places, even with the reputable journalist Kara Swisher.

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C. Scala's avatar

Catherine Rampell would include David Sacks as among those "cosplay[ing] as Robespierre." I recommend "GameStop is not a morality tale. People's life savings are at stake" in the Washington Post.

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Igor Abelev's avatar

It's a bit hard for me to understand your claim that trump's Big Lie didn't gain traction. In survey after survey, we find that a majority of Republicans a) don't see Biden as the legitimate president and b) justify violence in defense of their ideology.

The rest of the article as persuasive. But you shouldn't sugarcoat the truth about Trump's Big lie to get people there.

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Heime Israel's avatar

Mr. Sacks: Very good article.

It’s clear that the “insiders” (whether they’re political and/or money power insiders) are feeling the heat from social media’s exponential enablement of collective action. For a rag-tag bunch of day traders to bankrupt supposedly sophisticated hedge fund managers says a lot, but for the hedge fund managers to then have the juice to kick over the game says way, way more....

Hats off to the WallStreetBets guys... they saw a vulnerability and successfully exploited it....

P.S. look for the “power insiders” to get the SEC and Exchanges to significantly curtail open position reporting requirements. This will all be done under the Orwellian banner of ensuring the smooth operation of our financial markets free from short-term manipulation...

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Timothy Nantrell's avatar

This was a lot less about Reddit, GameStop, short sellers, collusion, market manipulation, etc. Than I had hoped for at the outset. It's a lot more about another story. Therefore, it was disappointing to me.

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