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You're saying that the end result will certainly be the same, that "the patsies" will end up giving their money to someone else. But at the same time you say th

You're saying that the end result will certainly be the same, that "the patsies" will end up giving their money to someone else. But at the same time you say that this scenario has to become regulated. Why? If the end result is the same, what's the argument for regulating it? Also, there's a hilarious near-unanimous political backlash against the brokers that interfered or halted with their customers' ability to trade GME these past couple of days. > If nothing else, this incident has shown that maverick investment could be dangerous to our financial systems. In the 2008 financial crisis, the actors who caused it suffered absolutely zero consequences, while the losses were socialized, and regular people suffered consequences in the form of recession and unemployment. The hypocrisy is staggering, if anything, the large actors in the financial systems are dangerous to ordinary people! > Their actions could hurt a lot of innocent people as well "Won't somebody please think of the children!!!" Yeah, no. The explicit target of this action are the shorting hedge funds that were betting on Gamestop's slow demise. There are no innocents being hurt here.

Silhouette 6y ago
If the end result is the same, what's the argument for regulating it? Mitigating the collateral damage that this sort of situation causes. The hypocrisy is staggering, if anything, the large actors in the financial systems are dangerous to ordinary people! I agree that some large actors have in the past been grossly irresponsible. I agree that they should be regulated and if necessary penalised accordingly. But two wrongs do not make a right. The explicit target of this action are the shorting hedge funds that were betting on Gamestop's slow demise. There are no innocents being hurt here. Tell that to everyone whose savings and pensions are invested rationally in places that are traded on the same markets but have nothing to do with the WSB pump and dump. Extreme volatility and irrational stock prices ultimately hurt everyone in the market who is trying to invest responsibly.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > Mitigating the collateral damage that this sort of situation causes. The thing is, this isn't 2008. The risk then was that the entire financial industry was in a precarious position because even the ones not holding enough bad mortgages to bankrupt them were still holding some, and the double whammy of that and being exposed to defaults by what people expected to be stable institutional debtors could have had a domino effect. Right now the financial industry is already flush with stimulus money and interest rates are around zero. You don't get the same domino effect. So big firms that made risky bets can suffer the consequences. > But two wrongs do not make a right. Just the opportunity to not bail them out this time could be worth the consequences to act as a deterrent for this kind of careless risk taking. > Extreme volatility and irrational stock prices ultimately hurt everyone in the market who is trying to invest responsibly. Explain how this has any significant effect on everyone investing in major index funds. Most of them don't include GameStop at all and for the few that do it generally isn't a major component. And even if it was, they would have then owned the same number of shares before this started and after it ends, so if the price goes from $5 to the moon and then back to $5 again over the course of a short period of time, that effects them how exactly?
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    I've just checked my own savings and pensions, which are in a portfolio of a few different investment funds, primarily in socially responsible areas that I expect to hold for the long term and investing in real stocks and not funny money financial instruments. I'm not in the US, and none of the funds I'm invested in has any declared connection to any of the affected stocks as far as I can see. And yet, despite steady, healthy growth in recent months, I appear to be down close to 10% over the past week. Now, that could just be bad luck, with sharp falls striking a variety of different funds at almost exactly the same time. Perhaps there has been some profit-tasking after that period of growth. But there has been generally positive sentiment in other respects this week, from Biden to vaccines, and no obvious cause for sudden alarm or to expect the growth to stop. Alternatively, something else is happening, and there is only one story making the front pages today that could explain it. Now, as I mentioned, I'm generally a buy-and-hold, long term investor. Short term blips don't greatly concern me, and probably won't until I'm getting close to retirement. But if I were about to retire, I'd be concerned about the short term consequences for rationality in the markets.

Silhouette 6y ago

If the end result is the same, what's the argument for regulating it? Mitigating the collateral damage that this sort of situation causes. The hypocrisy is staggering, if anything, the large actors in the financial systems are dangerous to ordinary people! I agree that some large actors have in the past been grossly irresponsible. I agree that they should be regulated and if necessary penalised accordingly. But two wrongs do not make a right. The explicit target of this action are the shorting hedge funds that were betting on Gamestop's slow demise. There are no innocents being hurt here. Tell that to everyone whose savings and pensions are invested rationally in places that are traded on the same markets but have nothing to do with the WSB pump and dump. Extreme volatility and irrational stock prices ultimately hurt everyone in the market who is trying to invest responsibly.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Mitigating the collateral damage that this sort of situation causes. The thing is, this isn't 2008. The risk then was that the entire financial industry was in a precarious position because even the ones not holding enough bad mortgages to bankrupt them were still holding some, and the double whammy of that and being exposed to defaults by what people expected to be stable institutional debtors could have had a domino effect. Right now the financial industry is already flush with stimulus money and interest rates are around zero. You don't get the same domino effect. So big firms that made risky bets can suffer the consequences. > But two wrongs do not make a right. Just the opportunity to not bail them out this time could be worth the consequences to act as a deterrent for this kind of careless risk taking. > Extreme volatility and irrational stock prices ultimately hurt everyone in the market who is trying to invest responsibly. Explain how this has any significant effect on everyone investing in major index funds. Most of them don't include GameStop at all and for the few that do it generally isn't a major component. And even if it was, they would have then owned the same number of shares before this started and after it ends, so if the price goes from $5 to the moon and then back to $5 again over the course of a short period of time, that effects them how exactly?
- Silhouette 6y ago
  I've just checked my own savings and pensions, which are in a portfolio of a few different investment funds, primarily in socially responsible areas that I expect to hold for the long term and investing in real stocks and not funny money financial instruments. I'm not in the US, and none of the funds I'm invested in has any declared connection to any of the affected stocks as far as I can see. And yet, despite steady, healthy growth in recent months, I appear to be down close to 10% over the past week. Now, that could just be bad luck, with sharp falls striking a variety of different funds at almost exactly the same time. Perhaps there has been some profit-tasking after that period of growth. But there has been generally positive sentiment in other respects this week, from Biden to vaccines, and no obvious cause for sudden alarm or to expect the growth to stop. Alternatively, something else is happening, and there is only one story making the front pages today that could explain it. Now, as I mentioned, I'm generally a buy-and-hold, long term investor. Short term blips don't greatly concern me, and probably won't until I'm getting close to retirement. But if I were about to retire, I'd be concerned about the short term consequences for rationality in the markets.