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Honestly it's scary. I literally just was talking to my nanny a little while back. She was telling me about her parents and brother, both basically pretty des

Honestly it's scary. I literally just was talking to my nanny a little while back. She was telling me about her parents and brother, both basically pretty desperately poor, who have invested their life savings into GME, a literal meme stock. I laughed when I first heard about GME, but seeing people who have no idea what they are doing invest in something so incredibly risky is really painful to watch. Come the next big financial crisis, this cannot end well.

jbay808 5y ago
It's very sad. I strongly believe that far, far fewer people would be doing this kind of risk-taking if their savings account was yielding at or above inflation, as it did from the 80s to around 2005.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  There are much safer assets that have generally stable returns. These people are looking to get rich quick
  - stanski 5y ago
    Or in many cases, get not poor quick.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    There's this, but they're also unsophisticated investors doing unsophisticated investor things. Many of them truly don't understand what a good or bad investment is.
  - throw1234651234 5y ago
    So are those of us cramming leetcode for FAANG...not so different after all.
    - twiceaday 5y ago
      "get rich quick" by studying arduously for a full time job interview...
  - jbay808 5y ago
    Safer and more stable relative to GME, absolutely. But I'm also worried about the very large group people that have thrown most of their savings into the S&P 500.
Uehreka 5y ago
I basically lived this arc in fast motion that week. Monday I was like “huh, interesting”, Tuesday I had some laughs with my Dad (who works in banking) about how crazy it was, then Wednesday I started seeing a lot of my friends who work in retail and food service talking seriously about getting Robinhood accounts and kicking themselves for “not getting in on the ground floor”. By Thursday I was texting close friends trying to convince them not to dump their paycheck on this bonfire. All along the way, there were some people who were calling me a killjoy and saying that everyone on board was in it for the lulz. But the people I saw doing this were not ironic memelords or anything, they were earnest working class folks who were taking the memes at face value and throwing money at what they believed was a chance to take down wall street while make money doing it.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Gamestop is still up 500% YOY. I'm pretty surprised it's held so much value.
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    The valuation before the short squeeze was pricing in the risk of bankruptcy. Covid hit Gamestop hard, and part of why it was so heavily shorted was that many thought the company was circling the drain. A year later that's no longer such a common opinion, so even ignoring the shenanigans you'd expect the price to be considerably higher.
__turbobrew__ 5y ago
This is basically the 1930s stock market crash all again. Once your nannies grandma starts talking about crypto you know the bubble is due to pop soon.

jbay808 5y ago

It's very sad. I strongly believe that far, far fewer people would be doing this kind of risk-taking if their savings account was yielding at or above inflation, as it did from the 80s to around 2005.

throwaway6734 5y ago
There are much safer assets that have generally stable returns. These people are looking to get rich quick
- stanski 5y ago
  Or in many cases, get not poor quick.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  There's this, but they're also unsophisticated investors doing unsophisticated investor things. Many of them truly don't understand what a good or bad investment is.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  So are those of us cramming leetcode for FAANG...not so different after all.
  - twiceaday 5y ago
    "get rich quick" by studying arduously for a full time job interview...
- jbay808 5y ago
  Safer and more stable relative to GME, absolutely. But I'm also worried about the very large group people that have thrown most of their savings into the S&P 500.

Uehreka 5y ago

I basically lived this arc in fast motion that week. Monday I was like “huh, interesting”, Tuesday I had some laughs with my Dad (who works in banking) about how crazy it was, then Wednesday I started seeing a lot of my friends who work in retail and food service talking seriously about getting Robinhood accounts and kicking themselves for “not getting in on the ground floor”. By Thursday I was texting close friends trying to convince them not to dump their paycheck on this bonfire. All along the way, there were some people who were calling me a killjoy and saying that everyone on board was in it for the lulz. But the people I saw doing this were not ironic memelords or anything, they were earnest working class folks who were taking the memes at face value and throwing money at what they believed was a chance to take down wall street while make money doing it.

cwkoss 5y ago
Gamestop is still up 500% YOY. I'm pretty surprised it's held so much value.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  The valuation before the short squeeze was pricing in the risk of bankruptcy. Covid hit Gamestop hard, and part of why it was so heavily shorted was that many thought the company was circling the drain. A year later that's no longer such a common opinion, so even ignoring the shenanigans you'd expect the price to be considerably higher.

__turbobrew__ 5y ago

This is basically the 1930s stock market crash all again. Once your nannies grandma starts talking about crypto you know the bubble is due to pop soon.