The Pirate Age

Date: February 2, 2021
Canonical: 22736
Archive: 22736 [history]
Categories: Badder Thoughts , Economics

The GameStop story, which is becoming more of a general short squeeze story, is a good example of what happens when an economy is fully financialized. Since there is little money to be made in making things or creating things, the best human resources flow into finance, where a bright person can get rich finding a slight imbalance in the marketplace for an asset or an error in the holdings of another player. The economy becomes a massive poker tournament with the central bank as the house.

If you step back and think about the transaction at the heart of this story, there is no moral or economic reason for it to exist. The practice of shorting a stock can have both moral and economic utility. In the former case, an investor seeing some corruption in a company or sector is letting the world know about it by betting against it with his own money. On the latter point, the blend of shorts and longs provides useful data about stocks and sectors for investors and planners.

When everyone at the table is using chips borrowed from the house and many of the whales at the table will never have to repay the house, both of these functions are flipped on their head. In the case of GameStop, some sharps were gaming the system in an effort to artificially deflate the value of otherwise good companies. GameStop is a solid little company that is an example of modern retail. They are a value-added retailer, which is the future in the world of digital commerce.

The point of the shorting activity was not to reveal some flaw in the company’s approach or signal a lack of faith in the retail sector. The point of the trade was to fool other investors into piling in on the short, so the price of the stock would collapse. This would allow the hedge funds behind this scheme to make a quick profit. The losers in this will be the people holding the stock and the company itself. Like all victims of piracy, their only crime was in trusting the system.

The neoliberal defenders of financialization will counter that the WallStreetBets activity is exactly the sort of self-regulation imagined when the process of financialization began in the 1980’s. Instead of government bureaucrats with no understanding of the market picking winners and losers, savvy players would do battle in the marketplace. In this case, clever traders saw an opportunity to raid the pirate ships raiding companies like GameStop and they carried off some booty for themselves.

This sounds great, if you are a pirate. There is no doubt that the people involved here love the action in the same way gamblers love it when some guy is on a huge roll at the craps table. It is an exhilarating drama, even for the observers. The thing is most people are not pirates and have no interest in being pirates. More important, they do not wish to be ruled by pirates. They do not want to live in a world of no fixed rules, just the shifting standards of the pirates making war in the economy.

This brings us to the purpose of having markets and rules to govern trade between people within a society. In order to have a society with any chance of survival, you have to have rules governing exchange between members. Otherwise, your society is a war of all against all. This opens the prospect of outsiders exploiting these constant divisions in order to conquer or destroy your society. Obviously, you want to prevent this, so the rules are designed to reduce division.

Put another way, economics is a tool. That tool is used to bind the people closer together, by rewarding the things that promote the common good and punishing those things that harm the common good. Inevitably, they help the society to strengthen itself against other societies. Just as males compete with one another for mates, societies compete with one another for resources and status. One is linked to the other as an immutable part of the human condition.

Neoliberalism reverses the relationship between society and economics. Instead of society wielding economics as a tool, pirates pick up parts of society and swing them around like flails at one another. In this example, a little company that probably should be private, is seeing its share prices stuffed into the cannons of financial pirates and fired at the ships of other pirates. When it is all over, the pirates will sail away to the next skirmish, while a little company lies in ruins.

This type of economics is inherently unstable. For one thing, the pirates must always be looking for new raiding opportunities. This is why the United States, the pirate’s cover of globalism, is always belching out raiding parties around the world. The quest for new plunder is insatiable. The constant war with Russia, for example, is over the pirate’s desire to financialize the vast natural resources of Russia. The Middle East is chaos, in part, because it is endlessly plundered by pirates.

More important from the perspective of the West, financialization undermines the institutions, because they become partners in the endless raiding. Instead of being the source of stability in a society, they are seen as aiding and abetting the pirates endlessly plundering the economy. Look around the West and the one universal thread is the public no longer trusts or respects its institutions. The people inside the institutions look out seeing nothing but sails on the horizon.

The age of pirates ended when the British government decided it was no longer in their interests to promote it. The British navy went out and sank pirate ships where they found them, and pirates were hung when they were caught. Eventually, order was restored to sea commerce. The modern world lacks an authority with the will and ability to bring the pirates under control. The public, on the other hand, demands such an authority, so eventually, they will find one or create one.

A new year brings new changes. The same is true for this site as we adjust to the reality of managerial authoritarianism. That means embracing crypto for when the inevitable happens and the traditional outlets are closed. Now more than ever it is important to support the voices that support you. Five bucks a month is not a lot to ask. If you prefer other ways of donating, look at the donate page. Thank you.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

250 Comments

Durendal #233019 February 2, 2021 9:34 am 43

The amount of normal white Americans being red pilled since the November elections cannot be over estimated.

whitney #233032 February 2, 2021 9:52 am 63

My old mother said to the other day, first words out of her mouth, I’m sick of black people! She is mostly sick of her TV shows glorifying the black man and denigrating the white man but she can’t avoid noticing and she is over it. She ranted for like 5 minutes. And then on February 1st she sent me a text saying “its Black History Month! Now we’re going to have to hear about black people a hundred percent of the time instead of just 70! Haha!!She’s not the only one. And let’s hope the young ones are waking up. They have not grown up with freedom of speech so they know to keep their mouths shut but it doesn’t mean they’re not aware

Glenfilthie #233037 February 2, 2021 9:58 am 36

It’s funny, the things Normie begins to notice when the sportzball and entertainment industries crap out….

David Wright #233064 February 2, 2021 10:32 am 32

It’s also funny how much people still can’t see if told not to or just incurious. Look at those thousands of troops in D.C. right now. It is blatant, brazen and now inside a razor wired wall to boot.It’s very presence is screaming at us and should send shivers down the spines of Americans and what it portends.

ABCer #233255 February 2, 2021 11:17 pm 2

The Troops behind the new Green Zone are a display of hysterical cowardice by the Congress, not strength. The Troops by the way being states national guard, as the active military turned them down. Moreover the NG, most deplorable of all, despises these people and their dubious orders. The mission is show of force, lethal force only justified in defense of life. It’s Bluff. Fascist, repressive regimes can’t be maintained by hysterical old biddies like Mitch and Nancy, never mind vapid tramps like AOC.

Falcone #233079 February 2, 2021 10:46 am 19

It’s also they don’t have to be around them, working remotely for example.the whole thing was always a house of cards. The only reason whites acted or trained themselves to be accommodating to blacks is because they had to work with them and for fear of being fired. So at the behest of your bodily fears your brain gets busy organizing your thoughts so only the allowable ones are moved to the front and the bad ones are buried deep in the attic. This way even in a heated moment, you are likely to not let a bad word slip.seen it. Done it. Lived it. But the moment you don’t need that job? All of those repressed and submerged ideas and thoughts come rushing to the fore like a damn has broken. Freedom at last.

OrangeFrog #233105 February 2, 2021 11:31 am 8

The only reason whites acted or trained themselves to be accommodating to blacks is because they had to work with them and for fear of being fired. Hmm. Not too sure many even trained themselves but were trained, some of the denial is staggering. As if The Lord himself was on our side, I notice AmRen pushing this one again: https://www.amren.com/news/2021/02/a-conversation-about-race-in-america/ Admittedly, the creator of the documentary selected only ‘True Believers’, but the white’s attempts toavoid saying anything bad about other races… ever, is something to behold.

Falcone #233165 February 2, 2021 2:23 pm 9

The training just happens by itself. Maybe some of it is deliberate, but seems that most of it happens behind the scenes. I know this much, get a few beers in a guy who has to work with blacks and then get a few beers in him when he doesn’t. Night and day in what he is willing to say or let on. If he has to work with them he may try to steer the conversation into a politically correct safe zone, even after a few beers. Having to work with them creates a mental fence. Just does.

KGB #233053 February 2, 2021 10:22 am 20

I make comments like that in front of my elderly mom quite often. “Do we live in the Congo now?” as the fifth straight commercial featuring joggers airs. I’ve yet to get her to voice a word in agreement but I know she sees it. It’s kind of an experiment I’m running to see how much prodding it takes to overcome the “No Noticing!” brainwashing.

whitney #233073 February 2, 2021 10:38 am 12

Yeah the utility of having old people wake up is limited but it is nice to be in agreement with your family. My two sisters are hard left so I’m the only one she can rant to. I started with look how they always make white husbands and fathers idiots. She saw it as soon as I pointed it out. The race thing came later

Crispin #233132 February 2, 2021 12:34 pm 8

My mother (96yo) complained when we saw some gay couples cuddling around in a an aids medicine commercial.“they can’t allow that on tv, can they”?Allow, nothing. They’rePUSHINGit on us , Mom.

james wilson #233178 February 2, 2021 2:59 pm 6

I speak frankly to teenage kids. One of them is now the professor of bio-chemistry at a major university twenty years later. I haven’t heard from him in many years but recently he told me everything I ever presented to him turned out to be true. I keet it to a half dozen or so of the major deceptions, and sooner or later they trip over it for themselves.I never fail to tell a young person I value that to understand who rules over them through propaganda they must Google up “white couples” and “American inventors”. I had a black kid I worked with do that and he belly laughed. Boogle has toned down the white couples thing a bit since then. It may have caused too much derision not to notice.

DLS #233213 February 2, 2021 5:47 pm 3

Wow, that’s high larious. Funny how many white couples have a black spouse in them. The photos of American inventors shows Thomas Edison, followed by 10 blacks before you get to Ben Franklin.

Mockingbird #233676 February 4, 2021 2:10 pm 0

Google up “white couples” and “American inventors”I did that and was amazed. It’s still pretty over the top–if that is toned down I can’t imagine what it was like before. Very funny!

Paintersforms #233137 February 2, 2021 12:56 pm 11

Used to be my family politely ignored me. Now they jokingly call me a bigot. They’ll be giving me lessons soon enough I’m sure.

CompscI #233177 February 2, 2021 2:56 pm 3

You *are* a bigot. Now let’s define “bigot”…😉

Paintersforms #233247 February 2, 2021 8:13 pm 1

That’s right. Taking the word back!

tarstarkas #233085 February 2, 2021 10:57 am 15

And those ridiculous lists of things black people invented, which they really didn’t. It’s not like there aren’t real things for which black people can take pride in.But everything has to be about blacks and so anything that you can find, even at a major stretch, where a black was involved, no matter how trivial the contribution, it’s all black and we whiteys would still be in caves beating our ugly white wives if not for them.

Sandmich #233091 February 2, 2021 11:04 am 9

It’s not like there aren’t real things for which black people can take pride in. “like”

DLS #233214 February 2, 2021 5:48 pm 2

Sportsball, dancing, jazz. And I’m spent.

whitney #233095 February 2, 2021 11:07 am 18

A lot of black people believe this. It’s a whole race suffering from the Dunning Krueger effect. Unlimited confidence and low ability. Actually, they’re the race that has it, we’re the race suffering from it

Falcone #233114 February 2, 2021 11:43 am 10

It’s leading to our demise Being around black people seems to have altered white people at the genetic level, making them weak and unable to reproduce Truly bizarre. But bottom line whether we like it or not, our survival depends on removing blacks from our midst. Their negative effects on us as a people are deep and far-reaching. Not fun and games anymore.

Carl B. #233131 February 2, 2021 12:33 pm 7

Too late. White youth is 90% Africanized.

KGB #233172 February 2, 2021 2:42 pm 4

90% is probably a bit high but it’s indeed scandalously high.

CompscI #233184 February 2, 2021 3:10 pm 10

Youth are not the end of the story.Look, if you could have known me when I was a teenager, then into college years, you’d have seen a liberalist, hard nose, arrogant asshole not entirely different from I suspect the majority of “youth” today. And I include not passively putting up with people who pissed me off. But for the Grace of God, I could have been an AntiFA type we see today.People age and as they get experience they can and do change. From my perspective, the information that can cause such change is more abundant and available and *correct* today than it was when I was young.Keep spreading the word. We sow seeds for trees we will never see the shade of.

Paintersforms #233140 February 2, 2021 12:58 pm 4

We’re not weak just burdened.

tarstarkas #233145 February 2, 2021 1:04 pm 9

I disagree. There are European countries with very few blacks suffering the same fate. Japan is Asian with very few blacks and basically no black Japanese and they suffering from it.I am sure it is not helping, but it is not the root cause.

Falcone #233168 February 2, 2021 2:28 pm 3

Not just blacks, but true outsiders. Such as Muslims, which seem to have similar effects on Europeans. I think it is not about blacks per se, but in America’s case it is, but about having to get inside the engine compartment and move things around so the thing works. In our case, we have had to move our own survival instincts around so we are able to live around blacks in a semblance of harmony. Yes, the engine is running, for now, but meanwhile what is going on deep down in the bowels of the thing is going to destroy the thing in time.

KGB #233173 February 2, 2021 2:45 pm 6

It’s insane how many cultures around the world have adopted aspects of African-American pop culture.

tarstarkas #233179 February 2, 2021 3:05 pm 13

That’s because America is the epicenter, the engine of globohomo. Especially with this culture of idolizing musicians and actors. This is made infinitely worse by the small hats controlling all entertainment media. They pump this garbage out to the world. This horrible noise and propaganda. It grates my friggin ears. I just can’t listen to it or watch it. It literally causes me pain when I am exposed to it.

DLS #233216 February 2, 2021 5:53 pm 6

It’s funny how the little hatters love blacks, but most prominent blacks think they are bloodsuckers, while most evangelicals love the little hatters, but the little hatters think evangelicals are dangerous loons one step away from cranking up the ovens.

CompscI #233187 February 2, 2021 3:16 pm 2

It’s rebellion. I remember not too long ago the Japanese youth with their Elvis hair styles and 50’s jeans look, rock and rolling in the streets to the astonishment of their elders. Now they look to an even more risqué culture to get (negative) attention.

Rwc1963 #233191 February 2, 2021 3:33 pm 4

Not really when you realize how influential American movies and advertising is in many countries. Worse the local governments have no idea that the crap from Hollywood is eradicating their native cultures or changing them so much they are no longer recognizable.

whitney #233212 February 2, 2021 5:43 pm 2

It’s a debased degenerate culture. It is easier to walk down than to walk up

Alzaebo #233180 February 2, 2021 3:06 pm 2

The global neurolinguistic pipe, modern media equipment, was built by America and is still the leading light. The problem is, it’s occupied by someone else whose greatest strength is storytelling.

Rwc1963 #233190 February 2, 2021 3:30 pm 7

The root cause is the US spewing it’s toxic culture across the planet. China is about the only country with the clout to tell Hollywood to FOAD when they push the joggers on them.The faster Hollywood and D.C. go down the drain the better off the world will be.

ABCer #233256 February 2, 2021 11:23 pm 0

Its American Liberalism thats killing the West, not niggers, not Jews. < although…yes, they eagerly fall to it. I remember Black people from the 70s. Rap, crack, pop culture, destruction of fathers and masculinity – its universal to all of us. The Japs have no blacks. The left must go.Moreover given they’re quaking behind the DC Green Zone they know their hours grow late.

Moe Noname #233096 February 2, 2021 11:07 am 26

Wait: are you saying black women did NOT run the US space program? Now you’re just typing crazy stuff… Let me tell you, they made a movie about it and everything, so it must be true.

WJ0216 #233183 February 2, 2021 3:09 pm 14

My boss, an older boomer , smart guy in many ways, believes the Hidden Figures propaganda that some voluptuous black women took us to the moon. Told me this three times. Last time he said it I did an “ackshually… it was the Nazi scientists we stole from Germany after WW 2”. Felt good.

CompscI #233193 February 2, 2021 3:41 pm 5

Heck that’s nothing. Recently Oprah made a movie about Henrietta Lacks, a Black women, of HeLa cell culture fame. Henrietta died of cancer in the 50’s or so, but while treating her the doctors took a culture of her cancer cells. These cells, being cancer, were defective in that they were immortal and continued to replicate in simple cell culture media—forever.This of course gave scientists a good example (at that time) of a cancer that they could experiment with for chemical treatment to kill cancer cells. Her cells were sent to labs around the world for such study. In essence, the beginnings of chemo therapy!Viola, Henrietta Lacks is deemed a Black heroine and her “sacrifice” saved countless thousands of lives. I kid you not. Put that women on the next $20 dollar bill.But here is the real story as I learned when an undergrad waaay back before PC and the Black self esteem movement. We were taught about detecting HeLa cells because these cells had been poorly handled and were contaminating human cell cultures throughout the world! HeLa cells were not the golden break through portrayed today, but rather a contaminant which spoiled any number of research findings then in print!And so it goes in clown world—Black cancer victims with no medical knowledge or understanding made heroic contributions to solve cancer, Black women math checkers made important calculations that astonished NASA engineers and eventually guided our first astronauts to the moon.

Spin geraht #233262 February 3, 2021 1:36 am 0

I read the book about the hela cells.As I recall Mrs. Lacks died from ovarian cancer. She had been treated for gonorrhea several times and when she died had several STDs and a UTI. The story was that her husband had brought home the “GIFTS” sad but typical.

Falcone #233111 February 2, 2021 11:40 am 8

And the obsession with slavery in the 1800s is a great distraction from the slavery underway right nowwhich is what pisses me off about black people. They get so hooked up on things from 100s of years ago they can’t see what’s happening and are too ignorant and maybe even too feeble-minded to see the atrocities right in front of their faces. They are such tools.And you would think they have to be thinking that, geez, if these people in charge can turn on regular white people after saying how great they were for the longest time, what else are they capable of? I mean it takes a truly fukked up people to turn on the people who built the country. Who’s next? But muh slavery

usNthem #233113 February 2, 2021 11:43 am 9

I’ve often noted and mentioned this before, but blacks will get ridiculous and out sized credit for completing even the most mundane task that the average White would do w/o thinking. They do love to be fawned over and a certain group of Whites love fawning over them.

Black Flag #233135 February 2, 2021 12:51 pm 4

Blacks invented the internet. With the help of Al Gore of course…

Ben the Layabout #233230 February 2, 2021 6:46 pm 0

It’s their month. Here’s a musical selection very appropos. Z used it on one of his shows.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsiZCyQoEVg

Charles St. Charles #233152 February 2, 2021 1:41 pm 22

I feel it too. For most of my adult life I have dealt with Negroes with an open but cautious tolerance. Now I don’t want to see them, hear them, smell them, be anywhere near them, see them in entertainment or news, talk about them at all, etc. I have a serious case of Negro fatigue. I recently moved to what appears to be one of the Whitest parts of the MidWest and I haven’t seen a single Black person in the flesh in three months. Guess what? I don’t miss them in any way – what is it that they offer to American society, culture, and civility that would be missed? Nothing.

Dennis Roe #233253 February 2, 2021 9:19 pm 4

Umm, murder, drug dealing, rap, welfare grift, unwed mothers, traveling, palming, end zone dances, burning , looting, rape, the knock out game, the first Lady with a dick.

DLS #233218 February 2, 2021 6:00 pm 0

https://bastionofliberty.blogspot.com/2015/06/frankly-my-dear-guest-post-from-ol-remus.html

TomA #233041 February 2, 2021 10:01 am 11

Just wait until real hardship arrives in suburbia. The stampede will be biblical.

Chet Rollins #233024 February 2, 2021 9:38 am 33

Reminds me of a scene in the movie Margin Call, about the stock market crash in 2008. One of the analysts figured out the crash the day before everyone else, and all the top execs flew in for an emergency meeting.One of the ladies asked the man his background, and he stated his extensive engineering and physics studies. She asked “So, you’re a rocket scientist”, to which he said yes and stated how much better the money was in the financial sector.We have battalions of potential rocket scientists who are, instead, being hired mercenaries for large financial firms. These are upper 130’s IQ guys who are not designing planes, working for NASA, or working in laboratories in Universities.And to think just a few generations ago we had Bell Labs, catalogued in the brilliant book “The Idea Factory”, that took promising men from everywhere in America and transformed the landscape of communications within 20 years.What a waste.

usNthem #233038 February 2, 2021 9:59 am 9

Shoot, building things that can actually benefit human society and/or deepen our knowledge of the universe is so yesterday. When you can use your intelligence to game the financial system mostly run by grifting idiots, and can cash in big time, why not? Don’t have to work as hard, make better $$ and can afford to buy all the useless crap that rich people typically do. Modern (former) america in a nutshell.

The Wild Geese Howard #233052 February 2, 2021 10:22 am 4

I just read a really good post by Scott Locklin arguing that we will never again be a, “society that builds things.”

usNthem #233083 February 2, 2021 10:54 am 5

I believe it. Unless it involves re-building or repairing things that used to work – if appropriate parts can be found or, god forbid, made.

Stranger in a strange land #233142 February 2, 2021 1:02 pm 4

Building things outsourced to the PRC – and a few other Asia-subcontinent counties. USA exists to provide financing via funny money and consume things. Which, I suppose will work – at least it until it doesn’t.

Drew #233039 February 2, 2021 10:00 am 10

“The quest for new plunder is insatiable.”Arguably, this is at the heart of woke capital. Up until WWI or so, capitalist expansion was geographical (i.e. exporting products into new territory, setting up production facilities in new territory, etc.). Since geographic expansion has been fully achieved, there needs to be a new realm for expansion. This new frontier is individual identity, which replaced the group identity of yore. Woke capital is simply creating new markets by selling to identity groups instead of regions. As a result, there is a drive for ever-increasing identity groups because that is literally market expansion nowadays. Certified vegan products, for example, are just ways of creating, albeit useless, new market. Gay stuff is another created market. Anything that’s “lifestyle” oriented in it’s marketing is ultimately just capitalist expansion. It’s a new market to sell in, only now the goods are practically superfluous. If the dissident right wants to succeed, it will have to rein in the capitalists.

OffByOne #233040 February 2, 2021 10:01 am 8

It is unfortunate that so much talent is either funneled into finance for building/buying/selling complicated derivatives or into tech for advertising and blender recommendations. However, given the current state of universities/NASA/government labs/etc, I don’t think it is actually that misallocated.

Chet Rollins #233051 February 2, 2021 10:22 am 7

>However, given the current state of universities/NASA/government labs/etcThat’s another problem. Even the pure people who don’t care as much about money don’t have a place to go where they can just work without politics getting in the way. The new generation missed the exhilarating cowboy days of the early internet.

The Wild Geese Howard #233055 February 2, 2021 10:25 am 6

These days the real talent is locked up and being burnt out at SpaceX. I don’t know how Elon is getting around the diversity mandates with the fedgov contracts SpaceX holds. I want to say it’s because they are a private company, but that seems far too simple.

OffByOne #233075 February 2, 2021 10:40 am 5

I don’t know how Elon is getting around the diversity mandates with the fedgov contracts SpaceX holds. A recent news item is that SpaceX is being investigated by the DoJ for discriminating against non-US citizens.I can’t speak to the talent at SpaceX, although Musk’s companies certainly have a reputation of burning out employees. However, current estimates for SpaceX’s total number of employees is only around 8,000. Talent is definitely locked up elsewhere as well.

The Wild Geese Howard #233081 February 2, 2021 10:49 am 5

SpaceX can afford to burn out talent because it’s a resume-maker the way Google was 15 years ago and Microsoft was 30 years ago.

Sandmich #233097 February 2, 2021 11:07 am 2

I heard that too, but I thought DFARS (or was it ITAR?) didn’t allow that?

RoBG #233106 February 2, 2021 11:33 am 3

The plaintiff in the suit is neither a Citizen nor a Green Card holder. This sounds insane to me.

Forever Templar #233124 February 2, 2021 12:09 pm 4

It shouldn’t sound insane. It isn’t your country any more.

Ben the Layabout #233231 February 2, 2021 7:09 pm 0

That was one benefit of working directly for the, er, um, for various government agencies. 🙂 Everybody you worked with had to be a U.S. citizen. Even back in the 80s-90s, however, it was still disappointing who met that requirement.https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/svg/1f621.svg

Sandmich #233063 February 2, 2021 10:31 am 13

The rot goes all the way through. How many decently intelligent people do we have who should be figuring out how to get rare resources out of the earth and make them into something, but are instead getting their MBA so that they can better move numbers from one column in Excel to the other (without regard to what such movements do).

Lucius Sulla #233138 February 2, 2021 12:57 pm 12

You bring up NASA, which causes me to mention something semi-related.Last week was the 35th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. That was a formative event in my life, the first real tragedy I remember. I recall coming home from kindergarten that day and seeing the replay over and over on the TV.Back then, the space program was one of our crown jewels. And for little boys like me, it inspired us and captured our imagination. I had space shuttle toys and loved watching the space launches on TV, which all used to be televised live.Remembering that event made me sad, because it reminded me that we were once a nation that did great things, that pushed boundaries, that explored frontiers. No longer. It is not a coincidence that the first black president was the one who stopped manned spaceflight – those people are inspired and captivated by different things.Further, at the time of the Challenger disaster, NASA was in its 28th year of existence. It accomplished a hell of a lot more in its first 28 years than it has in the 35 years since. Another sign of an empire in decline.Lastly, Reagan’s address to the nation that evening further saddens me, reminding me how our nation has devolved. In his address, he showed resolve, stated that these things happen when you explore frontiers and push boundaries, that we will continue exploring. That address would be an impossibility in today’s gynocratic world.https://youtu.be/Qa7icmqgsow

Alzaebo #233194 February 2, 2021 3:42 pm 9

No national funeral for Buzz Armstrong, yet 3 for Scuzz Floyd. How that nigga president hated us as he runs a shadow coup from his DC mansion.

Reynard #233220 February 2, 2021 6:05 pm 0

Man, this really puts things into perspective.Unreal.

The Wild Geese Howard #233246 February 2, 2021 8:08 pm 0

Yup. There’s even a NY Post story how he planned to run his coup.

Mockingbird #233699 February 4, 2021 3:02 pm 0

“The Challenger’s doomed journey felt especially devastating because it carried a crew that reflected the diversity of the United States and multiculturalism that was beginning to emerge after the civil rights era …” (from biography.com). We’ll never be told whether Challenger was just another affirmative action debacle, like “Operation Eagle Claw,” the laughable Iranian embassy rescue under Carter. Columbia, the next space shuttle to blow up, continued the tradition, with our first outright Israeli astronaut and I don’t remember who else. I think Musk is a needed hero for the space exploration.

David Wright #233018 February 2, 2021 9:30 am 33

Do these pirates wear eyepatches or little hats?

Durendal #233020 February 2, 2021 9:35 am 20

Little hats.

Federalist #233022 February 2, 2021 9:35 am 82

Do these pirates wear eyepatches or little hats? Maybe both.Ahoy Vey.

Bartleby the Scrivner #233054 February 2, 2021 10:22 am 15

Ahoy Vey Stealing it (in the spirit of the thread)

Epaminondas #233065 February 2, 2021 10:34 am 16

“What did the Jewish pirate call out to a passing ship?”

Screwtape #233042 February 2, 2021 10:04 am 36

Sure the tiny hats are ubiquitous in the circus tent. But for all the redpilled and dissident big men counting hats there sure seems to be an affinity for what schlomo has on offer, i.e. goodfeelz “winning”, make money buy things, talk about both as virtues.Ive yet to encounter a white dissident king who would leave a nickel on the table while selling his mcmansion to a young white family; his business to an eager up and coming young white man whose little hat bank leaves him 5% short in the cap stack; his farm to a young white family leaving bluecity – because “bad” developers are bad unless your name is on the contract; his book of plumbing business to a white male protege because its “all about the trades” except when exit price matters more; or otherwise impair any other of his holdings to the dreaded sub-optimization per “the market”.The difference between schlomo’s shell game and the white whales across the table is schlomo knows what he is selling.I am no fan of the little hats, having had the displeasure of trading among them in my misspent youth.But hating schlomo is easy. Whats more difficult is to listen to the droning of my white comrades as they count their shekels and pound their chests when correctly guessing under which shell lies the pea.The swolle of the nigger rich and the sperg legion of basement day traders taking it to the pirates seems rather pyrrhic.Well that is if the goal is a future for our children, which is hard to see sometimes through all the crowds heading into the circus tent.

Durendal #233050 February 2, 2021 10:21 am 14

I believe that mindset is changing and that tight-knit groups of whites are forming all over America and other white countries.

Falcone #233062 February 2, 2021 10:31 am 5

You don’t mess with money rather, you can let the young white family buying your house have some of your stuff, and that works just as well. Let him keep the tractor, or table saw, or the nice fridge, etc. But you don’t mess with money. why? I don’t know, but that’s just one of those iron rules of the universe, perhaps akin to a guy agreeing to be raped, and I don’t think it has anything to do with schlomo

Alzaebo #233108 February 2, 2021 11:39 am 12

When you meet your Maker, He won’t care about all those nickels you’ve hoarded to bribe Him with.

Falcone #233162 February 2, 2021 2:03 pm 9

It’s not about that, and it would be wise to refrain from being shallow, platitudinous, and intellectually lazy. For better or worse, money has a certain place in human affairs and has human meaning unto itself. Put it this way, loan a friend $100 or loan him a power tool of similar value. You know and I know that when he doesn’t pay you back $100 it affects us differently on an emotional and psychological level. If he instead never brings back your power tool you feel differently about it and are not as angry. With money it’s personal. Always personal. Just the way it is.A guy not paying you back is a guy who will bang your wife if he could. It says something about him too. Totally different than if he never brings you back the power tool. It says he’s just a turd and you may even laugh about it over beers. That never happens with money. Why? I don’t know. Again, just the way it is.

Alzaebo #233170 February 2, 2021 2:39 pm 8

What do you call a loan? A gift. I’ve given away so many “gifts”, I must be friggin’ Santa Claus. All those gifts were a gamble. You’d slap me upside the head, really you would. My only consideration was this: “could this possibly help a white person?”

Falcone #233182 February 2, 2021 3:09 pm 4

I hear ya, all I am saying is that money has this unique effect on all people. White people too. It’s a losing battle to fight the ways it manifests itself. Better to just be cognizant of its power. And it goes both ways an affects both parties to the transaction.I think the enduring appeal of the Lord of the Rings is because it recognizes this power over us and is not afraid to say so and show how even the best of us are weak when in before it. Again, I don’t know why it is, but just is. In my 53 years on this planet I have NEVER seen a situation where a person ever forgets being stiffed on a loan but know of countless times of people not getting their power tools or whatever back and it’s just forgotten over time.Life is strange

K80 #233205 February 2, 2021 4:36 pm 8

My wise Father who passed 2 years ago always said consider the loan a gift. If you would give it to the person then it was OK to loan it to him. If you wouldn’t then don’t. Just don’t expect to be paid back and you wont be disappointed. If it comes back that is a bonus.My advice is remember there is no better way to lose a friend then to loan him money. Better to cry poor then do that. Give it to him sure but loan it not so much. The mindset of giving it creates a credit limit of sorts on the magnitude of the transaction.

Ben the Layabout #233223 February 2, 2021 6:24 pm 3

I’ve always admired Daffy Duck’s outlook on wealth:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKMNPQ35OUc

c matt #233192 February 2, 2021 3:40 pm 9

Took me along time to figure out (and still working on it) but someone quoted in a thread on here that “love of money is the root of all evil.” Then it hit me –loveof money, not money itself. Money seems to be one of those tar babies that you can never be too sure if you are ruling it or it is ruling you. So best be utilized with great caution.

Peabody #233072 February 2, 2021 10:38 am 62

I’ve yet to encounter a White dissident king who would leave a nickel on the table . . . to [help] a young White family My husband and I gave one of our nephews and his beautiful cornflower blue-eyed, blond haired wife the down payment to buy a house plus paid off a sizable chunk of her ridiculous student loan to encourage them to start raising a family and for her to stay home to raise it. They did and she is.Now you’ve can say you’ve had at least one encounter.

Screwtape #233118 February 2, 2021 11:52 am 13

Thats awesome! Thats kin. Good on you, still.I reckon more of my bitter point was to highlight the nature of the transactional man.A tiny hat is easy to mock and despise, but what of the white man at the same table, playing the same game, solving toward the same priorities while schlomo moves around the pea? When he “wins”, is he really taking house money – or his brothers’?There is a point where the trader becomes a traitor, but only if his people matter to begin with.At least pirates are loyal to their shipmates, that is, as long as their share of the spoils is honored. Thats a low bar.The little hats, for all their evil hand rubbing jooeyness, seem to get this at some level.Until we begin to act as if a shared vision of a future for our people is the goal, we are just whales at the table and our future is lamp oil.Now cue the dissident day trader on how he has been killing it in trading lamp oil futures.If its all about the money lets just be honest about that. But if so, then all this little hat stuff sounds rather sour grape, ie the joos are just better at that game? What makes them better I wonder.

Peabody #233128 February 2, 2021 12:20 pm 20

What makes them better at looking out for their own? Thousands of years of outsider status and perceived unjustified persecution. They swim in those waters – most Whites don’t even see the rip tide about to engulf us.

Ben the Layabout #233226 February 2, 2021 6:34 pm 3

Do you think Jews are immune to victimizing fellow Jews? They may consider themselves the Chosen, but they are still human beings with all the defects that come with that. The Old Testament is hardly a blanket vision of Israelite unity against the outside world.

Educated.redneck #233163 February 2, 2021 2:14 pm 7

It’s hard, no doubt. In this system, he who does not steal robs his family. I try to be generous, but often fail. And to Falcone, “fair deal and square trade” is part of who we are; it feels alien to ask or receive favoritism, or even charity, in an arms-length deal with another adult.Recently, I had some trades work done. I got the quote, found the equipment for $xxx online, and was sore tempted to do it myself. But the tradesman was our people, and explicitly Christian, so I paid him $x,xxx to do the work. But I still have misgivings; that’s money I can’t spend on my kids now. Like Z said last week, it is all tradeoffs, TANSTAFL.

KGB #233171 February 2, 2021 2:39 pm 13

I’ve had that same argument in my mind. A few years ago, there was one remaining mom-and-pop TV shop around and I was trying to figure out which option was better? To spend the money there and sustain a community of my people, or buy it elsewhere cheaper, thus increasing the amount of money that my family has at their disposal — for wantsandneeds. There’s no universal answer and I can see the merit in either option.

Rwc1963 #233181 February 2, 2021 3:09 pm 13

Unlike Whites, the Bagel people look out for their own kind. Their greed only goes so far. They provide schools for their kids, private loans for poorer Jews, homes for their aged.They have advocacy groups to protect their people.Whereas the white monied class has no problem off-shoring entire companies to China and putting his fellow whites on the street.When Milken created LBO’s to loot American businesses into oblivion, white businessmen and investors rejoiced over the new ways they could profit from Milken’s legal piracy.Look at the CofC full of whites who shit on the country for a buck. They above the little hats are responsible for the massive importation of foreigners to replace Americans.Any so called white homeland won’t last a decade if it tolerates such behavior.

My Comment #233242 February 2, 2021 7:38 pm 4

Whites are the only group that doesn’t have in group preference. Good whites love to virtue signal about hating whites so there is no way Secession would ever work out. Even if the states seceded the same dynamic would be at play including the tribe owning the media and entertainment.

usNthem #233269 February 3, 2021 8:08 am 0

I’ve thought a lot about the secession thing and have to agree it’d be very difficult. Not only would joggers, little hats and various shade mud people have to be kicked out, but the damn White hating White leftards as well – maybe even an extra special punishment for them. It would require a major culling which just doesn’t seem feasible barring some disastrous existential event which forces the issue.

Penitent Man #233219 February 2, 2021 6:02 pm 4

I understand where you are going with this Screwtape, and I salute your call to arms (or alms).I also think Durendal is on to something. That attitude is changing, but it will take time.The Jews are further along that cohesion paradigm because they have been a repeatedly despised minority in country after country for almost two thousand years. Don’t underestimate the power of oppression in solidifying your identity… even if it is often self-inflicted. Hell, there are even museums celebrating offenses against them in countries that never harmed them. It’s a great schtick.We as whites, simply haven’t been the underdogs enough to gather that identity to our busoms, to turn that “otherness” into a rallying point. Sure, you’ll see it somewhat among the Irish, or American Southerners, and former Rhodesians… but those are subsets of whites that don’t see their past tribulations as deriving from their whiteness. In our new polyglot multicultural future Yugoslamerica… this will change.Whereas the Tribe has no qualms about short-changing the goyam, (it can be a yuck yuck point of pride with them) or using the angst of other groups as tools to further erode their host nations (their masterful handling of American blacks for example) we as Whites haven’t yet fully groked the existential threat we face. We still cling to our natural altruism. Most of us cannot see the writing on the wall that we will beome a despised minority in the nation our ancestors bequeathed us. This also will change.As to helping others (non-kin Whites) with your largess, or even from your larder… we are at a natural disadvantage for now because of the lack of self-awareness I mentioned above. Though there is a place for Christian charity, if I help a young white family I want them to know why. I am doing so because I care for and even love them because they are My People. That’s no easy thing to even hint at in our “racism is worse than pedophilia” culture. But when you can cross that bridge, I can assure you from experience that your giving will flow sweetly from you and you’ll feel you simply cannot do enough.One more point I want to make and that is it is no sin to give but maintain your ability to contunue as the giving hand. By that I mean, give to Our people but maintain your ability to be prosperous and self-sufficient. I can ruin myself and give everything to a worthy white fanily and live in penury with Mrs. P. Or I can help where I can, be mindful of my resources, and give again and again to others that are deserving. In the good book, Timothy admonishes us to care for our own household first. Perhaps there is a time, at the end of your days, to surrender all your worldly possessions to your tribe, but until then stay afloat and do what you can.

Dennis Roe #233250 February 2, 2021 8:59 pm 1

They have no moral conscience. We’re just cattle to be exploited.

Jacques #233209 February 2, 2021 5:05 pm 1

Good on you — well done!

Paintersforms #233136 February 2, 2021 12:54 pm 2

We’ve been down so low it looks like up.

LineInTheSand #233154 February 2, 2021 1:45 pm 14

We have a set of interconnected problems to solve. One is the small hats. Another is the deracinated white elites who believe they can prosper in the new racialized anarcho-tyranny. In what order should we solve these problems? Some people, like the NJP, want to focus on the former problem first. Others, paleocons perhaps including Z, want to persuade the latter first. Let’s see what works. Finally, not to brag, I give thousands of dollars per year to the dissident right.

1UknownSubject #233164 February 2, 2021 2:22 pm 3

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder”

Marty Grove #233094 February 2, 2021 11:07 am 16

This is what is disturbing about libertarians. They’ll argue about how a pirate economy is what they want. Anarcho-capitalists will drive this point till they die.It’s always centered around a wet-dream like Atlas Shrugged, where they imagine themselves as titans of industry who “help” ordinary people.Never crosses their mind that, in reality, the closest thing we have to that is Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, who clearly despise the little man.

Stranger in a strange land #233129 February 2, 2021 12:23 pm 4

Not a perfect analogy, but odd that at one point Bezos and Gates might have been the Galt and Rearden character types. Lately however, seems they would more represent the James Taggart, Wesley Mouch characters.

Dinothedoxie #233261 February 3, 2021 12:42 am 0

More like Lex Luther or Bond Villains.

Alzaebo #233149 February 2, 2021 1:25 pm 1

“They have a right to cause real harm”,libertarians forget that people come in groups. They also treat legal fictions like corporations and agencies as if they’re individuals to be reasoned with.

Alzaebo #233167 February 2, 2021 2:27 pm 0

“They have a right to cause real harm”, as if legal fictions like corporations and agencies are individuals to be reasoned with. (sorry, edit button glitching)

OffByOne #233023 February 2, 2021 9:37 am 16

Imagine being the CEO of GameStop, or belonging to the board. Must be an interesting feeling to be a cannonball.

Epaminondas #233074 February 2, 2021 10:40 am 3

Feeling sorry for merchants is something I don’t do well. Gamestop’s owners went for the prize. So did others.

Drew #233092 February 2, 2021 11:05 am 7

Agreed. One thing I realized a couple weeks ago is how my favorite companies to deal with aren’t traded on the NYSE (specifically, Aldi and Menards, and even Trader Joe’s). If a company wants to swim in shark-infested waters, so to speak, I can’t be bothered to care when they get bitten.

CompscI #233202 February 2, 2021 3:56 pm 0

I’d be pretty self satisfied that the hedge funds were getting killed. After all they were killing me.

TomA #233036 February 2, 2021 9:58 am 15

Know thy enemy.Waking Up To Reality (cont)Jackboots are real. They exist because no tyranny can survive without them. Most are Caucasian men who have been screened & selected based upon their proclivity for following orders and the propensity to act with violence on autopilot. And they all believe that they act with righteousness and official sanction which immunizes them against guilt or restraint. They could be your neighbor and will still feel no remorse for your persecution. They are formidable, lethal, and prefer to attack only in overwhelming numbers. And they are best avoided. There is no upside to being in their crosshairs. Last, they should not be confused with honest LEOs, which are a different animal.

The Wild Geese Howard #233059 February 2, 2021 10:29 am 8

Yup. There are enough woke/PC bro types and civnatters in LE and the military for the Bolsheviks to field a formidable force.

OrangeFrog #233025 February 2, 2021 9:39 am 15

The public, on the other hand, demands such an authority, so eventually, they will find one or create one Always a good thing to remember. There is a market and a demand for everything. It’ll be interesting to see how the demand for ‘protection from diversity’ increases massively in the coming years. Even if it has to be done by, ahem, unofficial contractors. There are still millions of people who want a stable family in a safe neighbourhood. And this is a major selling point of anyone offering community, or talking about banding together as the smegma of wokism descends.

Durendal #233026 February 2, 2021 9:42 am 10

Self segregation in that way will be made illegal for the average white but red sea tribe members will be allowed that kind of protection.

tristan #233027 February 2, 2021 9:42 am 0

Israel?

OrangeFrog #233033 February 2, 2021 9:52 am 15

There is a good chance that may happen. In the US before the UK, but at some point all men – and this is hard to face – will have to ask not whether it is illegal, but whether is it just. I don’t know how I’ll stack up, but that tipping point is coming, and I hope I choose right. It is a horrible and frightening question to ask oneself, yet here we are.Get all the good, solid people round you while you can. Make all the good, solid people from you while you can.Also, we’ve yet to see quite how the diversity show will play out. The infighting is, and will be, epic. We know it won’t be good for whites yet we don’t exactly know how bad it’ll get.

Alzaebo #233086 February 2, 2021 11:00 am 1

“ask not whether it is illegal, but whether is it just” Law used to be represented by a balance of the scales. Blindfolded Fortuna holding them is both the yin and the yang. The heart and the arm, neither overwhelming each other.

DLS #233221 February 2, 2021 6:12 pm 0

I always liked the thought that, “It’s illegal because it’s wrong. It’s not wrong because it’s illegal.”

Moe Noname #233048 February 2, 2021 10:17 am 13

There is a legal term called an “attractive nuisance”. Think rusty girder shaped like a teeter-totter balanced near a cliff or a closed amusement park full of fun things to fall off of. The owner of said nuisance has to put a fence around such “nuisance” or suffer liability when children, US citizens or other trespassers harm themselves.My wife and I live in a safe community to raise our children. High taxes act as a fence against poor people.Almost double the tax amount in order to pay for private schooling and avoid the degenerate culture.Open societies, towns/ cities/ regions/ states which can not or will not “exclude”, rapidly become attractive nuisances, suitable only for a quick thrill and most likely crippling injury or death.

OrangeFrog #233069 February 2, 2021 10:37 am 19

There is a legal term called an “attractive nuisance”. Me being a bigot and all, the first thing I thought of when I read this was: women. Off to Gyno-Gulag for me.

Ben the Layabout #233233 February 2, 2021 7:15 pm 0

The downfall of many a man, and a necessary evil since the dawn of the human racehttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/svg/1f611.svg

Apex Predator #233110 February 2, 2021 11:40 am 8

“High taxes act as a fence against poor people.Almost double the tax amount in order to pay for private schooling and avoid the degenerate culture.”Interestingly, while this is the ‘classic’ wisdom, it is almost wholly inapplicable in our Extreme Clown World. You are probably going to encounterfar moredegeneracy surrounded by a bunch of rich white people then you would surrounded by some salt of the earth low income trailer hicks.May want to read some of your kids textbooks and talk to their teachers sometime, you may get quite a surprise… (yes, even private school)Rich white people liberals mainly but even some republicans can afford ‘Luxury Beliefs’ poor people of all colors are simply trying to pay rent.https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-status-symbol-for-rich-americans/

OrangeFrog #233120 February 2, 2021 12:03 pm 5

May want to read some of your kids textbooks and talk to their teachers sometime, you may get quite a surprise… Indeed. I couldn’t agree more. Locating public schools, finding the staff and examining their Twitter feeds is a most revealing exercise. It is a great tool to use for converting others; scary as it may at first be.

CompscI #233206 February 2, 2021 4:39 pm 5

I recommend parents of school age children do one of two things: Talk to your child’s classroom teacher before the first class; or talk to the principle before first class if teacher is unresponsive.This discussion should request a class syllabus for the year or semester, so that you know what is scheduled to be taught. And this discussion should include asking if there will be any guest speakers, presentations, or instruction outside of what is specifically listed. None of this is private or not the standard for all teachers. They are required to have this information and are held to it.If the syllabus includes aspects of instruction/education with which you have concerns, ask to see the lesson plans for such. If guest presentations are planned, then request 24 hour notification of such, or if known and not acceptable, simply say your child is not to attend—that’s what the library is for.Set them on notice you are concerned and watching. Any blow back, see the principal and dump on him. Teachers—especially public school—are duplicitous cowards and rely on secrecy to indoctrinate. The good teachers will laugh and assure you that nothing of the like will occur. The bad ones will imply you’re getting in their shit. You can sense this, but only if you take the time to meet with them and set them straight.And yes, I did this once after being naive enough to blindly trust son’s teacher in grade school. You can back these folk down pretty easy. After that year, he went to a non-public school.

3g4me #233244 February 2, 2021 7:43 pm 1

I applaud and support every word. I did this every year, even in my sons’ Christian schools. They still use teachers with the same credentials and accreditation that public schools use, and the Christian text books have gonewaydownhill over the past 10-15 years. Guard your children for the precious future they represent.

Moe Noname #233211 February 2, 2021 5:17 pm 3

Amen, Apex. Very good point on the privileged private schools. My kid’s schools are splinter Catholic, non-diocean. Cardinal would prefer to shut them down, but hasn’t figured out how to without going the full 2020 election route.

3g4me #233243 February 2, 2021 7:40 pm 0

Well said. Additionally, most wealthy “White” enclaves have their share of magic dirt Han or a Pajeet ‘doctor.” You’re more likely to find a genuinely White neighborhood if you search by school enrollment (Schooldiggers.com) and the racial dot map (although it is out of date as based on the 2010 census). Money alone is no guarantee of community.

Gunner Q #233088 February 2, 2021 11:02 am 11

“The thing is most people are not pirates and have no interest in being pirates.” I’ve felt this way for a long time. There’s no place for us cash-under-the-mattress men in the modern marketplace. Everything’s gotta be a scam, entitlement or loophole in a world whose rules are constantly changing for the sake of change. Like wiping away your footprints at the crime scene.

Screwtape #233155 February 2, 2021 1:45 pm 4

And worse, you are a sucker for not playing, for not getting yours. This is where my long comments above strike: there is “white” culture and there is (((white))) culture. Under the same tent playing the same rigged games, the only difference I see between them is one takes better care of their own. On the margin, of course. To be dissident in the long run, our culture must coalesce around status, priorities, goodwill, and pro-social pro-community attributes and actions that must supersede the Market and muh gains. Otherwise its arbitrage, usury, and profits all the way down while being hated and hunted by traitors and little hats alike. Good luck with that.

Ben the Layabout #233240 February 2, 2021 7:31 pm 0

The story of Jacob and Esau comes to mind 🙂

Drew #233030 February 2, 2021 9:47 am 10

One way to fix the current system would be to eliminate limited liability, so that everyone who owns a company, whether directly or by proxy, is fully liable for the behavior of the corporation it owns. The other fix would be to only permit direct sales of shares privately. There is really no economic value to short sales, options, puts, etc., at least from the standpoint of functional output of the businesses. There’s no reason for the economy to be treated like a casino when Vegas exists for gamblers to get their fix.

Barnard #233035 February 2, 2021 9:56 am 19

Eliminating limited liability means every small business owner who runs afoul of the woke mob is at risk of losing his home. No thanks.

Glenfilthie #233046 February 2, 2021 10:13 am 10

Unofficially he almost is anyways, almost. If you don’t bake the cake – it’s lawfare, doxxing, public and private harrassment…

DLS #233228 February 2, 2021 6:37 pm 0

There are better ways to not bake the cake. Bake it, but do a crappy job, and still demand payment.

Hoagie #233076 February 2, 2021 10:45 am 5

Hate to tell ya but we already are.

Drew #233098 February 2, 2021 11:08 am 1

Small business owners are also less likely to run afoul of the mob, since the mob generally targets large, TRE companies.

Ben the Layabout #233239 February 2, 2021 7:24 pm 0

Yes, that’s the whole concept of where the corporation came from in English (?) law. It took a few centuries, but eventually we learned how to fully exploit it for evil purposes.

Glenfilthie #233045 February 2, 2021 10:11 am 2

Are there any corporate legal beagles around? I’d be willing to bet that there is law and legislation to prevent this kind of thing, and that it is being ignored – much like insider trading. The usual power brokers never get punished for doing that – just the dirt people…

c matt #233207 February 2, 2021 4:50 pm 1

most jurisdictions that allow for limited liability also provide for exceptions for fraudulent activity or recklessness, or other nefarious conduct. But as always it is not the laws that matter, but who interprets/enforces the laws.

She Was A Constitution Nut #233153 February 2, 2021 1:43 pm 5

Limited liabilityin British commerce goes back at least as far as theLimited Liability Act 1855. We need to understand well that history in addition to similar developments in other places, esp. the USA, Germany, Japan, etc. There is no way to make capitalists behave better without abolishing it. As things stand, commerce is rigged to encourage extreme recklessness and to socialize costs, and this on the pretext of obtaining benefits which we now know include rootlessness, destruction of society, and oceans with plastics up and down the water column.Probably another step forward will be the elimination of artificial personality. This initiative, too, will surely make reactionary secularists squeal in agony. Oh, the cumbersomeness of natural impediments to gigantic plundering enterprises!, they will cry out in protest. Well, too bad. Let the future of commerce be sole proprietorship capitalism and partnership capitalism.As always, virtually all libertarians and right wingers will rally to the defense of pirate culture, but there are a few exceptions.Mike Rozeff,a retired Professor of Finance, is one of them. Also, I’ve known some attorneys (often female and experienced in corporate lawyering) who would support the overdue reforms. Dividing the bar will be important for cultivating a nasty civil war within the lawyers’ cartels and for recruiting people needed to establish the replacement system of commerce in which there are no corporations at all, not even for operating big, ugly, American cities controlled by Democrats, communists, labor unions, cryptocanaanites, “Black” lives, and so on.

Citizen of a Silly Country #233029 February 2, 2021 9:45 am 10

Financialization has corresponded with Washington taking over more and more political power from the states. Financialization consolidates power on the economic side. Industrial capitalism spreads power throughout the economy, much like when states used to be more important than the federal government. Then, of course, you have technology and tech companies consolidating power in their realm. The country is now run by a very small elite in Washington, Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Moe Noname #233021 February 2, 2021 9:35 am 10

Thought experiment: 1. China conquers Taiwain in 1-3 weeks. 2. At least two US carrier groups are sunk attempting to “save democracy”. 3. US decides maybe democracy isnt that important. 4. Long Beach, Seattle/ Vancouver, Oakland accepts Chinese military ships in exchange for manufactured goods from the orient. The US would have peace (“Be safe!”), but only as a vassal state. Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.

Hun #233031 February 2, 2021 9:51 am 6

None of this is happening any time soon.

Drew #233087 February 2, 2021 11:02 am 1

Or ever, probably.

Drake #233126 February 2, 2021 12:20 pm 2

Correct – China doesn’t have the sea lift required. Taiwan would immediately assemble nuclear weapons. The one thing China can’t deal with presently is the U.S. nuclear attack subs, which would sink their navy and cargo fleet.

Crispin #233133 February 2, 2021 12:39 pm 7

Further thought experiment:If the USA’s Fleet Command becomes fully, woke trans, and POC populated…Wouldn’t that offset the Chinese shortcomings?

Drake #233188 February 2, 2021 3:19 pm 0

The subs maybe… Not Taiwan’s willingness to defend itself.

CompscI #233197 February 2, 2021 3:47 pm 0

That a carrier might be hit, or even sunk is not beyond the pale. But that China goes gallivanting around the world is entirely without basis. China at this time remains attached to its land. It can not project power, nor do I think it wants to project power as we like to project it.

Dinothedoxie #233257 February 2, 2021 11:57 pm 0

There’s no history of them doing so in the last five hundred years.

c matt #233203 February 2, 2021 4:00 pm 5

It would never happen because China already rules the US through Xiao Bi-Deng, therefore no need.

DLS #233222 February 2, 2021 6:17 pm 1

That was my first thought. My second thought was why do we care who rules Taiwan?

Spin geraht #233263 February 3, 2021 1:43 am 0

Because we have a long standing defense treaty with Taiwan.

TomA #233047 February 2, 2021 10:17 am 6

A real collapse is the cure because it forces awareness and action. For that reason, the Deep State would choose to manufacture a different type of phony war. The core idea is to distract the plebs with measured anxiety, but not existential fear, and then ship all the alphas overseas in endless lukewarm conflict. Methinks Yemen could become the next tarbaby scapegoat.

Hoagie #233068 February 2, 2021 10:36 am 2

I thought that’s what the Red Chinese Plague was for.

Semi-Hemi #233080 February 2, 2021 10:49 am 6

What happens when the alphas stop joining up? The draft? That’ll be the day. Can you imagine drafting all the aspiring rappers?

Federalist #233100 February 2, 2021 11:13 am 22

What happens when the alphas stop joining up? Lots of CivNat/NormieCons who were waving the flag and in love with the military just a couple of months ago now say that they wouldn’t serve and would do anything to stop their sons from joining. The change is astounding.They can talk all they want about blacks, browns, women, and gays. The actual trigger-pullers are mostly regular white guys and they’re saying “to hell with this.”

WJ0216 #233186 February 2, 2021 3:15 pm 5

If Trump and the election debacle has done anything, it has shattered a lot of normie love for the neocons and their wars. On many web sites George W Bush and Cheney are are almost universally reviled. 15 years ago these same people were spouting off “we just can’t cut and run” or “we have to fight them over there so we dont have to fight them over here”. Or they were were jerking off over the killing of Uday and Qusay.

DLS #233224 February 2, 2021 6:33 pm 2

That was me except for the jerking off part. Now I can honestly say Al Gore couldn’t have been much worse, and he is clinically insane. Same as my belief that McCain or Romney would not have been much better than Obama.

Steve #233158 February 2, 2021 1:51 pm 4

No, blacks will receive deferments for every last thing, leaving it up to – you guessed it – the straight, white male population to once again, do ALL heavy lifting.

CompscI #233199 February 2, 2021 3:51 pm 6

The military will not accept any recruit with an IQ below 83, give or take a bit. That leave 50% of American Blacks “deferred” right off the bat. Add another large percentage as ineligible due to criminal background or drug use and you have perhaps a third eligible for the draft.

DLS #233225 February 2, 2021 6:34 pm 1

Rules you say?

Spin geraht #233264 February 3, 2021 1:48 am 0

If it were a real war they would take them.Early in the terror wars they were taking pretty much anybody.

usNthem #233099 February 2, 2021 11:10 am 10

I’m not sure they could even pull that off anymore. It’d almost assuredly have to be some 9-11 or PH type event – an evil attack on the precious “homeland” to get enough people to buy into it. Of course these evil bastards probably wouldn’t have a problem going to such lengths and hammer a (former) american city, claiming it was the ruskies or chinks. In any event, the covidian nonsense has been such an unexpected winner, why not just come up with something similar, but much more dire to get the sheeple cowering even more.

The Wild Geese Howard #233049 February 2, 2021 10:21 am 2

Won’t happen because it doesn’t need to and it’s far too messy. On Xitler’s orders Xiden will get the troops tangled up in the Middle East to facilitate the MIC grift, box in Russia, and facilitate the BRI project. The PLA will waltz into Taiwan with fairly light resistance.

ProZNoV #233058 February 2, 2021 10:27 am 15

China will take Taiwan, because it must.A US carrier may be sunk, revealing the US for the over extended paper tiger it has become. US democracy isn’t important. The Chinese will never invade the US mainland. But they’ll control it where it counts anyway.

The Wild Geese Howard #233070 February 2, 2021 10:37 am 15

Based on the behavior of the US government and media China has no need to invade North America. Taiwan is of enormous financial, intellectual, industrial, political, and strategic value to the West and China. At some point, the fat, gay, incompetent, tranny-filled US military will no longer be a credible deterrent. Based on recent PLA activities, they appear to believe that point is drawing near.

RoBG #233104 February 2, 2021 11:29 am 5

Back in December it was leaked that the CCP has infiltrated Western corporations, governments, and universities.https://tinyurl.com/4j8323xhThe MSM sure gave that story a leaving-alone.

The Wild Geese Howard #233119 February 2, 2021 11:57 am 4

The only MSM coverage I saw was Sky News Australia, who are surprisingly red-pilled. I’m amazed they are still on the air. If the West is that compromised, imagine how compromised Taiwan is, being 100 miles from the mainland and sharing a common ethnicity and language. Simply a matter of time.

KGB #233139 February 2, 2021 12:57 pm 2

The KMT (Nationalists) have spent two decades indicating that they’d be very happy serving as lapdog colonial governors under a CCP regime. Chinese penetration into Taiwan is surely very thorough. The only question is, how much is the opposite true? Thirty years ago, every Taiwanese industrialist worth his salt pulled up stakes and moved across the Strait. Most of them created a second life there, with a second wife and family even.For two generations, the struggle in Taiwan has been between biology/tribe and ideology. We would presume to know who will win that game, but it’s a bit different in Taiwan where there aren’t any small hats and, in fact, no outsiders at all. They already have the biology correct, which allows people to put more stock into ideology. I would think there are a handful of overseas Taiwanese who prefer their native political climate to that of the mainland. And the men who built factories in China are above average minds with access to CCP power brokers. Whatever plan China has for Taiwan, I can’t imagine that Taipei won’t learn of it before the rest of the world.

Jack Dobson #233229 February 2, 2021 6:45 pm 0

Taiwan has subs and reportedly nukes. As a result, Taiwan may face more hostility than love from the West if its oligarchs feel their investments are in danger.

Jack Dobson #233227 February 2, 2021 6:36 pm 0

The only true threat the PRC poses to Americans is its Fifth Column in the United States, which is vicious and dangerous. China might feel compelled to liquidate its Fifth Column some day if it goes a bit rogue. It could give a damn less about anyone or anything else in the United States otherwise along as its overseers keep things in order.

Hoagie #233071 February 2, 2021 10:37 am 7

Our new “governor” Kim-Jung Goldberg.

Black Flag #233144 February 2, 2021 1:03 pm 3

We’re already ruled by evil commies from a land far far away we just continue the illusion that our evil commie rulers are chosen by the people. Even Fox said it was legitimate so no questions! That being said, at least Chinese rule would do something about the jogging population. McCain is rolling over in his grave at the thought of missing a good ol ship fire party though.

Sandmich #233077 February 2, 2021 10:45 am 7

Sinking a carrier “group” would be quite the undertaking, and for as little as I think of the diversitard military about the only way China could pull it off would be if we were docked in one of their ports. Now sinking a carrier is perfectly doable and I’ve heard there are even many third rate countries that could pull it off (depending on their suicidal tendencies).What’s interesting though is the move would be akin to the Japanese concentrating on sinking the battleships at Pearl Harbor: they’d be taking out the weapon from the last war. Apart from the dead sailors they’d almost being “us” a favor since there’s no way domestically that the archaic carrier strategy can be killed off.

Forever Templar #233121 February 2, 2021 12:05 pm 4

From what I’m given to understand there is no real conventional way to wipe out a carrier group short of a nuclear attack. Supposedly the Russians have some toys that can pass through the rings of anti-air/ballistic missile protection, but whatever – being Russian, their stated qualities are questionable if they work at all. A full sinking wouldn’t really be necessary, though. A carrier is an expensive platform from a bygone era. Do enough damage to one to require a return to home waters and you’ve effectively “destroyed” it.

The Wild Geese Howard #233245 February 2, 2021 8:06 pm 0

Hypersonic missiles.

Carl B. #233134 February 2, 2021 12:42 pm 0

Nuke subs secure carrier groups. Sink a USN carrier and in 15 minutes you are radioactive dust.

Sandmich #233159 February 2, 2021 1:54 pm 1

Decades ago I read non-fiction a book which influenced the novel Red Storm Rising and in it the author pointed out that blowing up a bunch of ships and fish with a nuke provides a very poor justification for unbridled nuclear retaliation.Now that being said, who knows what is going through the minds of insane wokies pulling Biden’s strings.

CompscI #233201 February 2, 2021 3:55 pm 0

I wonder if we will use nukes in any war short of response to nukes or direct land invasion.

Carl B. #233217 February 2, 2021 5:58 pm 1

A nuclear-armed dying empire is a very dangerous thing.

Dinothedoxie #233258 February 3, 2021 12:06 am 0

The soviets weren’t.

Alzaebo #233189 February 2, 2021 3:29 pm 1

China is the successful model. Co-dependent frenemy mercantilism will replace big war, except for low-level turf wars. Why? The stratosphere class are above borders. They are becoming their own ‘sphere’. The tradeoff for land wars will be increased population and pollution. (The Chinese naval fleet only need defend Chinese turf, thus its slow build, in contrast to historical Japan.)

American Citizen 2.0 #233141 February 2, 2021 1:00 pm 8

For me it’s interesting to see how the Yellow Vest protests in France are similar to the GameStop protest in Finance. The mainstream media and political elites do not want to give any air (or airtime) to the grievance that is very clearly being expressed by the people who are participating. The media and politicians want to talk about the things they have already decided will be the narrative focus. Any events that happen outside that narrative focus are ignored. I have found it odd how there is no news at all outside of a very narrow band of topics for the last year. The Arab Spring, on the other hand, was trumpeted to the moon as proof of the dawning of a new age and new awareness. Interesting. We too will have our spring but you won’t hear hardly a peep about it until it is sprung because the media isn’t going to allow anyone to express the facts that are right before everyone’s eyes until it’s too late.

TomA #233176 February 2, 2021 2:55 pm 6

Kill your TV. Watching the mainstream media news just infects you with despair, defeatism, and fits of hand-wringing. And none of it is actionable intelligence, so the exercise is pointless and time-wasting too. Even worse, repeating their message in other forums is aiding & abetting the felony. Last, please avoid the Bongino habit of laughing hysterically at the snark you hurl at them. It doesn’t solve any problem and is very poor entertainment to boot.

Thud Muffle #233169 February 2, 2021 2:28 pm 7

“In order to have a society with any chance of survival, you have to have rules governing exchange between people” But First you need honest people

Drake #233200 February 2, 2021 3:53 pm 3

We have neither.

James J OMeara #233127 February 2, 2021 12:20 pm 6

The economy is created by society for its own benefit, not an independent pirate? Someone will need to come along and set things straight? Look out Zman! That’s the kind of rational thinking that led the most rational and educated people in Europe in a certain direction. Gosh, we can’t have that!

JR Wirth #233123 February 2, 2021 12:07 pm 6

Much of this piracy would disappear if interest rates were allowed to rise to their natural level. They haven’t been there in decades. If someone is making a good return on savings, that capital is less likely to be deployed into exotic financial instruments in an attempt to make a margin above inflation. Most of this damage was done by the Federal Reserve, which has been juicing the system to bail the economy out of each and every recession since 1990. It’s easier said than done however. If this situation was ever corrected the recession that rebalances everything would be so deep and so massive that the entire edifice of the economy and government itself would be in jeopardy. Although this will happen anyway as MMT is eventually unleashed in a hail mary pass to avoid the devastating effects of the next recession.

Drake #233130 February 2, 2021 12:25 pm 6

I agree, but it will never happen because the interest on the national debt would become untenable.

Alzaebo #233160 February 2, 2021 1:55 pm 2

Without central banks and their money laundering, most crime and corruption would have a stop put to it.

JR Wirth #233161 February 2, 2021 1:55 pm 8

We’re in a pickle. The vast majority of people even in Finance don’t understand that one basic concept. That the historic rate of interest, around 5%, would bankrupt (not literally, in outlays) the Federal budget. The larger the pile of debt the more motion is necessary to keep that debt churning at the periphery. This is why hurricanes never get above Cat 5, because the perimeter can’t move fast enough. The storm then goes into entropy. Debt works in the same way. The interest rate is the barometric pressure in the interior. The pressure is now zero, nowhere to go. In a storm that’s literally been building since Reagan (and others) hooked government to the bond market circa 1983. How ironic that the “small government” President, who later appointed Greenspan, created the environment for the Federal behemoth to grow to this point.

Bilejones #233146 February 2, 2021 1:05 pm 11

in an attempt to make a margin above inflation.Inflation is a creation of the Fed (or govt generally) Once upon a time, 20 years ago I had data on retail prices for the US going back to 1800 – 200 years.Three things were blindingly obvious.The well known “Inflation is a fact of life and the Feds job is to hold it to around 2-3% bullshit” story that we’ve been toldPrior to that deflation was the usual way of life: i.e. goods became cheaper. Five seconds of reflection and you realize, of course they do- people who find ways to make goods cheaper replace those who can’t- few people make steel using pre-Bessemer techniques.Ask those competing with China.The exceptions to rule two 4 or 5 in the 1800’s were, without exception the times of and following wars.Inflation is the great enemy, your money becoming worth more is the natural way of things.

Alzaebo #233151 February 2, 2021 1:40 pm 7

I understand now why my friend shakes with anger at the “insurrection.” Likewise with “extremists” “attacking” Wall Street. His income is multiple income streams are from pensions and government, it affords him a nice life in a diversity-free enclave. Without the government and Wall St., there are no pensions. Attacking the system is an attack on his mortgage and family. This is an existential battle. They consider us the raiders.

JR Wirth #233156 February 2, 2021 1:46 pm 4

Anyone with an annuity of any kind will be a big loser going forward. And anyone in the bond market in general.

Alzaebo #233157 February 2, 2021 1:48 pm 1

Also, they have no past or future; they don’t understand that we see the long chain of our past and future stolen. This is why they gain such meaning from faux WWlls like covid or anti-whatever.

Reactionary Utopian #233044 February 2, 2021 10:09 am 6

“When it is all over, the pirates will sail away to the next skirmish, while a little company lies in ruins.”Be patient with me; I studied physics in school and worked a career in engineering, and I’m sure there’s some business-world fundamental here that I’m not seeing. Help me. Suppose I have a business, Game Stop. I need capital to expand it by buying more capital equipment: stores and fixtures, I suppose, whatever it is you need to Stop Games. Okay, so you issue stock, people buy it, you take the money and buy your capital goods, and let us say your business is successful. Meanwhile, these pirates play games and “your” stock price, meaning the price of the shares that you sold and no longer own, goes up and down wildly for no good reason. Maybe it ends up very low. Unless you personally own a bunch of it, why do you care? How does it hurt your business of Stopping Games?The only thing I can think of is that maybe the shareholders show up at the shareholders’ meeting and throw you out, in terms of management, and put in some Gordon Gekko who proceeds to sell all the assets, fire all the workers, and wreck the business. Is that what happens at the end of the piracy? Or is there some other way that Game Stop no longer Stops any Games?Seriously, help me out here.

usNthem #233057 February 2, 2021 10:27 am 6

Technically, the wild gyrations in GME over the past week have no relation to the company’s fundamentals, which Z has pointed out are not bad. It was nothing more than an opportunity for two opposing factions – wall street insiders vs. retail outsiders to duke it out in a pretty much unprecedented fashion. Lots of money made and lost, but I imagine the company officers and employees benefited very little other than to see their retirement accounts (if they have them) and any company stock they might own shoot to the moon and crash back to earth. Company stock holders usually have restrictions on when they can sell or exercise stock options, so they may not have been able to take advantage of the short lived phenomenon.

The Wild Geese Howard #233067 February 2, 2021 10:35 am 8

Note that a lot of the retail outsiders were guys who have fond memories of GameStop and gaming in general. This is why u/DeepFuckingValue was able to mobilize the masses on YouTube and WSB. He understood this key psychological part of the situation. You couldn’t mobilize people like that over an alfalfa farming stock that was 140% short.

blatherskiter #233078 February 2, 2021 10:46 am 3

use the Hallmark ruse, never go public with your shares—

OffByOne #233082 February 2, 2021 10:52 am 6

To first order, I suppose it is the shareholders that lose or gain money. However, there are second order effects. For instance, depending upon how low the share price falls, it may no longer be possible to raise sufficient funds (for acquisitions, expansions, etc) by selling shares. This could force the company to need to borrow.

Reactionary Utopian #233089 February 2, 2021 11:04 am 2

Yeah, I can see that. Thanks!

Sandmich #233084 February 2, 2021 10:56 am 5

Not really in my wheelhouse but I’ll try. GME was being naked-shorted with the intention to force the stock price down below where the fundamentals would dictate. This can (and was probably intended to) cause a cascade effect where everyone starts running for the exits thinking there’s something wrong with the company. When that happens vendors go from allowing 30+ day terms to demanding “cash on the barrel” and at that point it’s game over and off to bankruptcy court.

Damian #233101 February 2, 2021 11:16 am 3

From the company management perspective it doesn’t matter provided you have enough cash in the bank to cover invoices, and don’t have debt. After the IPO the stock market is simply a market in second hand goods. Hence it’s called the secondary market. It is essential as people need an incentive to buy into the IPO in the first place.Another way to look at it, is that a savvy company with cash on hand can use this to it’s advantage. If the shorts win and weak hands sell, then the company can buy back shares at way below market value. That will boost the price of the remaining shares, and the company can then slowly sell back it’s shares if it needed to raise further cash.Also worth noting that if you hold stock, you should have thoroughly researched the business. If it is sound, then so what if it’s shorted. The price will rise again within a few months – so why panic and sell.My nephew bought GME back in November and turned $300 into just over $10,000 so he did very well out of it. He’s sold some now but kept a bit in out of principle. I’ve told him to invest the rest in Tlou Energy. You heard it here first.

Guest #233103 February 2, 2021 11:29 am 6

The broad answer to that question is that it matters because your equity is only one component of your capital structure. Debt is the other. And a severe collapse in your equity will impact the terms and structure of debt/credit offered to your firm.GameStop probably had a revolving line of credit which it used to fund operations. That line of credit likely was canceled, or at least severely restricted, during the short squeeze. Ditto for vendor financing terms.Few large businesses can survive on cash terms, even if they are profitable. Once their credit lines get cut it’s a struggle to avoid bankruptcy.

Reactionary Utopian #233150 February 2, 2021 1:37 pm 3

Thanks for the above several replies. It seems like debt is the underlying problem. In my simple way of thinking, a well-run company would control its spending so that it can operate on a cash basis. Acquisitions and expansion? If the money’s not already there, maybe you just don’t do them. Another way of looking at it might be that a well-run company can simply be privately held. No need to sail in pirate-infested waters. Again, I appreciate the comments.

c matt #233210 February 2, 2021 5:16 pm 2

It also matters in that corporate laws also impose fiduciary obligations on the corporate management to the shareholders. This may trigger litigation when the stock price falls and shareholders sue claiming mismanagement for not optimizing the value of their holdings. True, they would have to prove the mismanagement and that such mismanagement caused their losses, and as long as you are doing a good job at Stopping Games, it may be challenging to prove. But lack of evidence never stopped someone from filing a ruinous lawsuit.

Whiskey #233198 February 2, 2021 3:49 pm 4

Z — the argument the elites make is that technology allows them to have ever changing rules and the ability to cancel people at will “virtually.” No need for a gulag or killing fields, that’s 20th Century. Canceled people can’t buy food or do anything and starve to death on the streets. And they can be replaced by an infinite number of immigrants who technology will make into replaceable widgets.That is the argument I hear anyway. All over the FT.

WCiv...---... #233268 February 3, 2021 7:48 am 0

…assuming that the quality of those work force replacements is sufficient to meet the talents necessary to make those widgets.

ExPraliteMonk #233043 February 2, 2021 10:05 am 4

“The pirate’s cover” I think you meant “The pirate’s cove”. Good essay nonetheless.

Hun #233028 February 2, 2021 9:44 am 4

GME is crashing. One set of pirates have left. Another set of pirates is having fun now. Pigs got slaughtered.

Barnard #233034 February 2, 2021 9:55 am 14

There was no reason to continue to hold a long position in Game Stop past Friday. The short contracts all had to be met then and the company’s financials do not support a stock price of $350. It will settle down below $50 a share. This was unavoidable.

The Wild Geese Howard #233056 February 2, 2021 10:27 am 2

Yup. The big guys squealed about getting caught napping, but they’ve been around the block. Eventually they were going to wriggle out of their shorts one way or another.

Hun #233093 February 2, 2021 11:07 am 4

Exactly. The ones who kept holding or bought when the stock crossed $300 are the pigs that got slaugtered later.

LineInTheSand #233174 February 2, 2021 2:51 pm 3

Those who bought GME must have known that the stock would crash eventually. I like to think that they bought the GME for the pleasure of defiance. Although the inevitable outcome will be GME stock returning to what it was a month ago, the whole exercise was a successful proof of concept. Good to know this can be done.

Hun #233195 February 2, 2021 3:42 pm 1

The smarter ones either planed to sell to the covering shorts or to the greater fools. The suckers kept buying every time someone from the first group wrote “keep buying!”

LineInTheSand #233215 February 2, 2021 5:52 pm 2

I’d like to think that they weren’t suckers but rather rebels willing to lose some money to strike a blow, but I don’t know.

Ben the Layabout #233237 February 2, 2021 7:22 pm 3

Well, clearly the Redditors (WallStreetBets) couldn’t possibly have moved the market alone. There was big money, probably other hedges, that came in on the way up (and down, no doubt). But it’s still nice to see a few of the shorts lose several billion collectively 🙂

Ben the Layabout #233236 February 2, 2021 7:19 pm 1

Lost a bit on 1 share of stock, two options expired wortheless Friday. One profit so far. But I have several low puts for Feb 26 that I’m rooting forhttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/svg/1f911.svg

Higgs Boson #233175 February 2, 2021 2:52 pm 3

Time spent on Reddit insurgent timelines has been interesting. Their objective is to destroy our two-tiered class system, motivated by revenge more than money. They act collectively, are intelligent and strategic, and might just succeed. I thought I knew how corrupt the cartel is, but I’m learning a lot.

The Wild Geese Howard #233248 February 2, 2021 8:15 pm 0

I’m not so sure about that. Going after silver means going after JP Morgan, which is one of the world’s real centers of wealth and power. JPM can easily eat several million retail guys with stimmy checks for lunch.

Karl Horst Germany #233265 February 3, 2021 6:43 am 1

Democrats demonized Trump for putting up a wall between Mexico and the US and then President Biden issued a executive order stopping further building. But they wasted no time putting a wall around the US Capitol building and calling in the Army to secure it. Nancy Pelosi must have been really upset when she saw someone walking off with her lectern.

WCiv...---... #233267 February 3, 2021 7:42 am 0

Makes you realize what a once mighty, powerful, robust country we once were, to still be alive and kicking, after all the abuse she has taken. “first the chill, then the stupor, then the letting go.” We’re somewhere between room temperature and rigor mortis.

seabee #233254 February 2, 2021 11:00 pm 1

Hanged.

Bilejones #233208 February 2, 2021 4:58 pm 1

This is worth a look.The title is bullshit, it’s far from complete but it’s a start.I’m using Firefox and swisscows. https://www.techspot.com/news/80729-complete-list-alternatives-all-google-products.html

DLS #233235 February 2, 2021 7:17 pm 3

I switched to Brave and DuckDuckGo. I can barely tell the difference.

The Wild Geese Howard #233249 February 2, 2021 8:17 pm 1

I really need to get off my lazy IT ass and move to Linux. There are several distros that make it super easy. Mint is probably the simplest.

KGB #233251 February 2, 2021 9:11 pm 1

+1 Brave and Duck Duck Go are excellent alternatives.

DYSPEPSIA GENERATION Blog Archive The Pirate Age #233147 February 2, 2021 1:17 pm 1

[…] ZMan nails it. […]

Memebro #233382 February 3, 2021 12:32 pm 0

This Wall Street piracy sounds like a scheme perfectly suited for Dan Cringeshaw

Karl Horst Germany #233266 February 3, 2021 6:46 am 0

Germany once had an actual Pirate Party in our Parliament, sans eye patches and parrots. https://www.npr.org/2012/06/06/154388897/a-party-on-the-rise-germanys-pirates-come-ashore

swrichmond #233252 February 2, 2021 9:17 pm 0

economics is how things get made. politics is who gets to keep them.

jim #233090 February 2, 2021 11:04 am 0

” The practice of shorting a stock can have both moral and economic utility. In the former case, an investor seeing some corruption in a company or sector is letting the world know about it by betting against it with his own money. On the latter point, the blend of shorts and longs provides useful data about stocks and sectors for investors and planners.”For the first time ever I think, Zman, your talking bullshit…I am a long term investor (never shorted a stock)…there is NO necessity for a company ( or your gun, guitar, shoes, lawn mower, you get the picture) to be SHORT SOLD for any economy to run smoothly…the sharks will try to convince us that it is needed for liquidity, but that’s BS….if you don’t like your stock (or shoes, house, snow blower, wife, etc) SELL IT…..No one has the right to BRING DOWN a company that is badly managed….just don’t buy it!Sorry for my rant, Z…..love the rest of what you write..

thezman #233102 February 2, 2021 11:17 am 5

It is not about “rights” which is why I never mentioned it. It has nothing to do with liquidity either. I think you are confusing the naked short with the regular short.

jim #233107 February 2, 2021 11:39 am 0

Granted naked shorting is worse…..but markets have been in existence thousands of years (more on than off) and for the huge majority of those years there was no short selling of any kind ….even the times of market disruptions when short selling of any kind was outlawed, the markets settled down ,albeit, with much less volume and volatility…Thank you for this discourse….P.S. Could be wrong, but guessing our Jewish friends promoted this through the years…of course, my Sicilian brothers and sisters learned rapidly (or rabidly!) from them..

thezman #233122 February 2, 2021 12:07 pm 3

Shorting is implicit in all transactions. If I have a coin collection and sell it to you, I’m doing it because I’m desperate, I’m bored with it or I think its value will decline, so I would rather put the money in something else. Formalizing the short between two parties is fine, as long as it is regulated. Both sides need to be able to guarantee the transaction. That’s where you need regulations to put hard limits on shorting. After all, there is a limit to what you can lose on the long position. There is no limit on the shorty, unless the state mandates it.As is with all things, the short is a useful tool in capable hands.

jim #233125 February 2, 2021 12:16 pm 0

If you have a coin collection, YOU own it so you can sell it or buy more….it’s not the same as borrowing your coin collection from a third party and I sell it and promise the third party to buy it back so they can give it back to you…..truly don’t understand your point….it is incredibly different

Ben the Layabout #233241 February 2, 2021 7:34 pm 0

Yes, this is new to me too. The borrowed share of stock has become a chain of IOUs which multiplies the default risk. This is as logical as me renting a car and then selling it 🙂

She Was A Constitution Nut #233185 February 2, 2021 3:14 pm 0

Suppose that I buy a package of corn tortillas for my dinner. In what way is there an implicit short sale, in the relevant sense of the term “Shorting”? Most often I get my tortillas from Aldi, which first acquires alongposition in a package upon buying it from the maker or a distributor. Aldi closes out that position by selling the package to me, presumably at a higher price. The maximum possible gain or loss to Aldi on the long position has been obtained, and that’s the end of it for them, at least for that package.Unlike the case of a regular short sale of a share of stock, Aldi hasn’t first borrowed the tortillas and has nonewfinancial position to resolve upon selling them to me. The company bought low and sold high, as in most mundane transactions for manufactured items. So there was no short sale.

Dinothedoxie #233259 February 3, 2021 12:38 am 0

The thing that’s beneath the reporting surface with “shorting” a stock is that it’s inherently fraudulent.in theory the shorter “borrows” the shares and agrees to return them at a specified date. Except that hardly ever happens. What does happen is that the shorter “borrows” them from a firm that is holding the shares for a third party.For example: you have gamestock shares in your portfolio that is handled through Dino’s brokerage. And then Dino “lends” your shares to Pirate Joe for his short play for a transaction fee. Problem is that the shares aren’t Dino’s to play with – they are yours. And further, the profit from playing with Pirate Joe goes to Dino not you.Thats a clear violation of Dino’s fiduciary duty and in other circumstances clearly criminal. It reminds me of a bank manager many decades ago that would take cash from the banks’ vault on Friday afternoon for quick gambling trips to Vegas. He always got the money back before being discovered so no harm no foul. Right?

DLS #233232 February 2, 2021 7:09 pm 0

I think what jim is missing is that shorting is really just using debt to acquire shares and agreeing with another party to make a future sale transaction at the current price. Farmers do this all the time, because they are farmers and not commodity traders. They want to lock in the current prices so they know what their profit is from the actual farming. Yes, farmers actually own their commodities for a time, but that is usually funded with debt as well. The only difference, which is no small thing, is that farmers actually add value to the process, whereas short sellers just add liquidity and market signals.

OffByOne #233109 February 2, 2021 11:40 am 3

Long term investing doesn’t mean you won’t necessarily short a stock. By not buying a stock you’re betting that its price does not change. By shorting a stock you’re betting that the price decreases. A short can also help you hedge your long positions.

jim #233117 February 2, 2021 11:47 am 0

If your “betting” your not really “investing”…but even investing is a gamble when you can’t believe the numbers management gives you..

BerndV #233143 February 2, 2021 1:03 pm 2

While I believe naked short selling should be illegal, short sellers often perform the useful function of exposing fraud in the market. While this does not apply in the case of Game Stop, Valeant and Wirecard are some well known examples. Many fraudulent Chinese stocks have been exposed by short sellers.

Alzaebo #233148 February 2, 2021 1:18 pm 0

Naked shorting, options, and leveraged buyouts- the ‘hostile merger and aquisition’ craze- were all legalized during the 80s. A hedge fund used to be Kellogg’s buying enough wheat futures to keep making cereal. They didn’t used to exist, and were tools of the pirates to create financial feudal fiefdoms and cartels. Covid is medical tyranny, anti-racism is cultural tyranny, etc., these are the tools of a pirate State to raid its captive populace, the serfs who live there. Not yer granpappy’s capitalism, not anymore.

OffByOne #233196 February 2, 2021 3:45 pm 0

Yes, any investment in the presence of uncertainty is a ‘gamble’/’wager’/’bet’. For instance, taking out a loan to complete a STEM degree is an ‘investment’ in oneself, but also a bet on future earnings relative to the loan and the interest.Can you, or someone else with this position, give an argument against short selling? I’m honestly interested, as I saw a clip of Tucker Carlson expressing a similar sentiment against short selling, and it seems many people share this sentiment.I should also note that there is an error in my post, as instead of betting on whether the price will rise or fall, one is instead likely making a bet on what one believes theexpected valueof the price will be, which accounts for the probabilities of the rise and fall.

Dinothedoxie #233260 February 3, 2021 12:41 am 0

The difference between investing and gamboling is that gamboling is always zero sum, with the dealer taking a cut. Whereas investing is positive sum – the investment increased the total wealth society.

DLS #233234 February 2, 2021 7:15 pm 0

That’s a good point. If you sell shares with large capital gains, you have a significant tax expense. Shorting allows insurance without incurring that cost.

Anonymouse #233112 February 2, 2021 11:43 am -8

The only comments worth reading are the original comments to your articles. This is true for other posts from other sources. It’s interesting how many comments are derivatives, responses to other comments, etc. These are not worth reading, and yet, the greater the number of these, the greater you can tell the effectiveness of the original post. Good job, btw, on your post. I believe you are right.

She Was A Constitution Nut #233166 February 2, 2021 2:23 pm 2

Here’sanother commentfor you to frown about and sneer at. Its subject is the leading institution for the financialization of commerce.

CompscI #233204 February 2, 2021 4:10 pm 6

I believe we call your derivatives, conversation. It is an art. You should try it sometime, as opposed to trolling.

DLS #233238 February 2, 2021 7:23 pm 3

I find the commenters on this site to be first rate, and have learned much from the back and forth. On a lot of sites, it can devolve into name calling, but this site is so good I almost always read the comments to the end.

Zarchive

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