Gamestop Hedgefunds, Silver Markets, and Economic Freedom


ThatGuy

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I've started a new topic dedicated to the rapidly-developing news regarding the stock market goings-on lately, as it relates to the post-election cycle. Things are happening so fast and furious, it's hard to keep up, but it's also a good time to see how the Objectivist arguments about fiat currency vs. a commodity-backed system are playing out in real-time current events. (And though the election may be "over", the consequences are just beginning, as things are really taken some interesting turns...if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Francisco D'Anconia was out there making his moves while Ragnar Danneskjold was making his...)

Here's a post to kick it off: The silver market. People are buying more than what's available, and the world is getting a lesson in the very-basic but very-ignored laws of supply and demand...

U.S. Mint Still Rationing Silver Coins Amid ‘Exceptional’ Demand
 

"The Reddit-fueled run-up in silver prices might be stalling, but the U.S. Mint said it is still rationing its sales of silver coins because of “continued exceptional market demand,” as well as limited supplies and manufacturing capacity.

"The Mint is also allocating gold and platinum coin sales to authorized purchasers, it said in a statement Tuesday. The policy will be in place 'for the foreseeable future.'"


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-02/u-s-mint-to-continue-silver-coin-allocation-amid-strong-demand

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(To MSK: I just came up with the title based on the current movers and shakers, combined with the essay "Gold and Economic Freedom" from CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL. But I can see this taking on a bigger scope, as well. If you have a better idea for a thread title that might be better for a long-run view to catalog and comment on this stuff, by all means...)

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I'm not going to be able to repost all the relevant posts from the Deep State Thread, but the following two posts are good to recap the Gamestop shortselling incident that set it all off...

Don't know if anyone here has caught up with the Gamestop Hedgefun short-selling on Wall Street story (it's kinda like the Modanock Valley scheme from THE FOUNTAINHEAD, or the scheme from THE PRODUCERS), but it's kinda of a big deal. I don't know how to explain it fully, as it's happening so fast, but something happened where trading was shut down to prevent a shortselling scheme from falling through, and  it's got people from across the aisle PISSED at Wall Street hedge fund brokers.

and
 

Plus, this one, from Gab:

“People don’t have to like the their rulers. But once a ruler is hated, people will start risking harm to their own good fortunes, just to fuck with them.

“If you take away people’s hops for the future and then double down by taking away any joy which can be had in the present moment, their only source of dopamine becomes actively fucking with you.”

https://gab.com/Miles/posts/105630683164809695

 

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This one shows how Biden and Janet Yellen are connected to the Gamestop story...

"Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has made over $7 million from speaking at Wall Street firms including Citadel- which has invested billions of dollars in the primary hedge fund now suffering as a result of the GameStop stock surge."

 

 


 

 

(sorry, can't delete the duplicate embedded tweet)

and

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yellen-monitoring-gamestop-market-activity-183420988.html
...

[Elizabeth Warren] : “For years, the same hedge funds, private equity firms, and wealthy investors dismayed by the GameStop trades have treated the stock market like their own personal casino while everyone else pays the price,” Warren said. “It’s long past time for the SEC and other financial regulators to wake up and do their jobs -- and with a new administration and Democrats running Congress, I intend to make sure they do.”

" Warren’s comments came after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Biden’s economic team were watching stock market activity around GameStop and other heavily shorted companies."

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More fallout: BIPARTISAN support for congressional investigation into Robinhood

"BREAKING: a class action lawsuit has been filed against Robinhood in the southern district of New York, as bipartisan support grows for a congressional investigation into why they shut down GameStop trading"

https://nationalfile.com/breaking-class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-robinhood-as-bipartisan-support-grows-for-congressional-investigation/
 

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Hat tip to Jon Letendre for sharing elsewhere the following article explaining the implications of the current silver market. Prefaces it by saying that it explains "some of how and why [they] keep silver and gold prices artificially low. Their fiat, fake money system requires it, so they are rather committed to continuing."

 

"A #SilverSqueeze Manifesto"

"Why Silver?

"Silver is the Achilles heel because big financial institutions have been manipulating this sector like no other. Why? Because they can. The bullion banks can short silver futures, which only exist on paper, and smash the 'official' price of silver. They’ve been caught doing this again and again, and they’ve effectively just been slapped on the wrist with fines that are little more than drops in the bucket for them, compared to what can be gained by the manipulation. We all know by now that those who help make the rules find ways to make rules to their advantage, and to rise above the other rules. Interestingly, if the dollar price of silver were allowed to be set by supply and demand, the true rate of inflation – which is another way of saying the true rate of devaluation of your dollars over the years – would be much clearer. Who benefits from this devaluation of your dollars? Hint: not you."


https://silverseek.com/article/silversqueeze-manifesto

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From what I understand, the tanking of Gamestop is not due to buying and selling shares. It's due to hedge funds shuffling buying positions between each other.

Here is a comment from 10 hours ago on the Wallstreetbets Reddit thread that explains it in a form I think is correct:

Quote

Oh my god! GME is down to $150! It's down to $100! It's down to 30 cents! The hedgies are going to cover all their shorts at that 30cent price point! It's over!

Wrong.

No one is selling at these prices. Sure, maybe a few scared folk who don't know any better. Maybe they trigger a few stop losses. Maybe some margins get called. But it's not enough. Say it with me:

PRICE DOESN'T MATTER

WHAT?!

You heard me. 30cent GME? No problem.

They don't need a low price, they need your shares. If 10 people sell at 30c cents, and that's the only market activity, it's a "30 cent stock" but Melvin only netted ten shares. They are still fucked. They aren't buying 50 million shares at 30c, nor $100, nor $300, and that's their problem. It's an availability issue. Sometimes it's ALSO a price issue (too high for them) but primarily it's the availability.

All the activity driving down the listed share price are illegal ladder attacks (not that legality should be expected at this point, these folk are crooks). Those aren't actual sales though, it's just shares trading hands from hedgie to hedgie. They aren't gobbling up value. These people don't admit defeat, they are neither smart nor humble, they are crooks. They need 50 million+ shares. They need over 100% of the float to sell to them (that 50% float you hear about is accounting shennaigans, ignore it, they are still exposed). You can NOT close that many positions sniping a few shaky handed noobs. We aren't talking about a few shares they need to buy, we're talking about fucking ALL OF THEM.

This is like what is going on in about silver.

The authoritarian establishment is spreading news all over the place about the Reddit people attacking silver to make oodles of short term cash at the expense of the big guys. Why is the authoritarian establishment doing this? I think they are scared. But they are also trying to manipulate public image or get the Wallstreetbets kids into some kind of trap or whatever. And the Wallstreetbets kids aren't going for it. They have been bitching up a storm, saying they are not doing anything with silver.

However, in terms of the long game, they are.

The trick with silver is to buy physical silver, not certificates. This guy explains it perfectly in a form as I understand it. This is a long game and it's not about money. It's about taking down the bad guys.

Stop Thinking Small! A message to WSB et al re: #silversqueeze

(Note from MSK: When I first posted this, it was an embedded video from Reddit. I did not notice it had an annoying autoplay turned on. All you needed to do was go to the first page on this thread to see any post and the damn video started playing. I just noticed and tried to fix it. I couldn't, so I switched the embedded video to the above link. Click on it and you can see the video over there on Reddit. Oddly enough, over there they don't have the autoplay turned on. The video is important, though, and well worth seeing.)

I love these kids.

The Financial Deep State only makes that love stronger.

:)

Michael

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So how did the Wallstreetbets kids get so smart?

Here is part of an email I wrote to a friend yesterday that gives part of the answer. (I cleaned it up and rewrote a few things.)

But talk about something humongous to chew on if your frame is Objectivism and Rand.

The issue is reality. What happens to your brain when you grow up interacting mostly with electronic screens and hand controls rather than the rest of reality?

Quote

Memorize this phrase:

Dematerialization of consumption.

This is what happens when everything becomes story (and game) and nothing is real anymore.

This is how the kids are blasting the shit out of Wall Street.

The adults (boomers, etc.) get their kicks, their neurochemical spurts of high, from owning STUFF. The kids, including Millennials, get their kicks from going into God mode on a game, or going up a level, or having a superhero kick the ass of a supervillain, etc. The adults need a real Jaguar. The kids are happy with a virtual Jaguar so they can keep the money as tokens to beat Wall Street at their own game. The adults want Wall Street's money because they want the STUFF and power it brings. The kids want Wall Street's tokens (their money) in order to win the game and only that.

In other words, money does not mean the same thing to the kids as it does adults. The adults need reality--STUFF--to feel superior. They need houses, cars, trophy wives, jewelry, etc. The kids do not. 

The adults did a stupid thing in the culture. They used story (and gamification and things like that) to fool others and take their STUFF. (This includes the entire globalism scam.) 

But the kids don't care about STUFF. After all, STUFF has to be taken care of and protected. In virtual reality, there is virtual STUFF and it needs no care. If you don't like it, you simply play a different game and get the same neurochemical kicks.

Don't forget, the neurochemical high (from dopamine, serotonin, etc.) is the same for all humans. That means both adults and kids get the same high. Except adults have to worry about keeping and caring for and protecting STUFF while kids only need to worry about and care for and protect their computers, mobiles, etc., including an Internet connection. But that's all.

In other words, the kids see story (and games) as reality. They grew up on story (including games) alone. They are saturated in story and games. They know how to live there. STUFF-wise, most kids generally had enough to eat and a roof over their heads and that was good enough to look at screens. Their group dynamics come from the virtual world, not from crowds or neighbors. They couldn't give a shit about keeping up with the Jones in terms of STUFF. They want scores and badges and tokens and special online privileges and things like that. Virtual things. 

With WallStreetBets, the kids are not taking STUFF from the adults. The kids are taking scores and game levels from them, which, to the chagrin of the adults addicted to STUFF, happen to be money. And if a kid loses at getting a score or going up a level, he plays again later. Once an adult loses a Jaguar or a billion dollars, it's hard to get another. Also, there's the psychological devastation that comes with that. To a kid, there's disappointment, but a new game is waiting as soon as he logs on again.

The adults are addicted to material consumption. Kids consume virtual reality, not STUFF. They are addicted to brain states induced by stories and games. And this is called the dematerialization of consumption.

Whoever does not understand this will end up selling the wrong thing to the wrong people, that is, they will fail.

These Orange Pill people--Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert--discuss this beautifully, although they didn't cover the neurochemical part. That's my addition to their observations.

 

Incidentally, I recently discovered Max Keiser & Stacy Herbert, who are mostly Bitcoin people, and I am now a HUGE fan of them.

:)

On the cryptocurrency side, I am also getting into Michael Saylor and Simon Dixon. They are also big Bitcoin folks, but that's for another discussion.

Michael

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51 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

But they are also trying to manipulate public image or get the Wallstreetbets kids into some kind of trap or whatever. And the Wallstreetbets kids aren't going for it.

Big Tech, Corporate Media Smears WallStreetBets as Racist!

by Paul Joseph Watson

"Calling Reddit stock nerds "white supremacists" is surely peak 'everyone I don't like is a Nazi.'"


https://www.infowars.com/posts/big-tech-corporate-media-smears-wallstreetbets-as-racist/

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On Fox Business Channel they were talking about how silver is used in solar panels and how the crazy democrats think oil workers can shift over to installing solar panels. Oil workers make about 12 grand more a year than solar panel installers and their work places aren’t all over the country.  And who knew wind power is big in Texas!

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Just received an email from Change.org claiming that the employees of Robin Hood are calling for their CEO to step down over the Gamestop scandal:

"Last week, the Robinhood trading app put limits on their users’ abilities to buy stocks. Users were only given the option to sell, which pushed stock prices down. Now, Robinhood employees are taking a stand against this action. They know that this went against the company’s mission to democratize finance. They’ve joined together calling on Robinhood’s CEO to step down - or else they will collectively quit. Add your name to show your support to Robinhood’s employees in their fight for a free market system."

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