How a Forgotten Video Game Retailer Became a Symbol of the Oppressed

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Thank you for following Money Trends. --------------------------------------------------------------- How a Forgotten Video Game Retailer Became a Symbol of the Oppressed By Andy Krieger, Editor, Money Trends 2021 is off to a chaotic start, with bizarre fluctuations in a handful of stocks capturing the public’s attention. You’ve likely heard the story by now… Earlier this month, the Reddit WallStreetBets gang of retail traders brought one hedge fund to its knees with an historic short squeeze on GameStop, and the authorities are howling in alarm. It’s remarkable that a small company that sells video games could create so much commotion. But the story underlying the short squeeze is far more interesting. A dying video game retailer moved front and center in what is going to surely become a battle royale between the haves and the have-nots. For the most part, the WallStreetBets traders were operating through the Robinhood trading platform. Robinhood presents itself as a unique platform designed to help out the “little guy.” It is no small irony that Robinhood has turned out to be largely financed and supported by the big money guys. What is most interesting about this scenario is not the massive losses inflicted on giant hedge funds by a group of retail traders who theoretically didn’t know what they were doing… But rather the underlying significance of this development. We have a motley crew of 8.4 million traders (the number of members on the WallStreetBets group) who have banded together to try to level the playing field and take down the big money guys. This is really a manifestation of something much deeper and far more sinister that relates to the growing disparity in wealth between the rich and everyone else. [As I've written before]( this disparity has never been bigger. And there is a growing tension in society that could become dangerous. Recommended Link [Get Tech Expert Jeff Brown’s New Services… FREE?]( [image]( Exclusive special offer expiring midnight tonight. [Get the full details here]( -- There is something very wrong in a society that had over 8 million people – including many children – slide into poverty as the mega-rich were making trillions from the stock market’s wild rally. In fact, the disparity has become so embedded in society that the mega-wealthy and elite don’t even bother trying to conceal their explicit conflicts of interest, as they did in the past. Consider the following headline from the financial website ZeroHedge: Yellen Gets Ethics Waiver to Lead Regulator Meeting on GameStop Insanity After Taking $810k From Citadel This magnanimous offer by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to investigate the matter is one of the most conflict-laden efforts by a government official that I have ever seen. Yellen has deep and obvious conflicts of interest with the Wall Street elite. Over the past couple of years, she’s raked in millions of dollars in speaking fees from various companies – including Citadel, the Wall Street titan at the center of the GameStop story. Citadel is a major investor in Melvin Capital, the hedge fund that suffered the largest losses due to GameStop over the past few weeks. And Yellen isn’t the only one with troubling conflicts of interest in the GameStop story. Citadel also pays about 40% of the income Robinhood earns when they effectively buy the order flow. So is it surprising that Robinhood arbitrarily changed the trading rules for its little guys, preventing them from buying more shares in GameStop… blatantly favoring the big hedge funds as they continued to trade on an unrestricted basis? In case people had any doubt before about corrupt business practices and ties of the elite, this settles the issue. There is no way this story ends well. Depending on how things play out, it may only be a matter of time before the 8.4 million traders in WallStreetBets become a de facto symbol of the oppressed and a mouthpiece for the have-nots. They will demand transparency and fairness where none truly existed before. They will demand answers from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as to how much his stock holdings have increased in value since he began his mad, money-printing exercise that has inflated equity valuations beyond reason. They will ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about her recent purchases of call options in a variety of popular companies. The demands could extend deep into the halls of Congress. The other obvious point here is how this will come to be seen as a perfect example of how, when services are provided for free, the customer is the product. Reddit traders who used Robinhood are learning the hard way that they are the product. Their so-called free trading comes with a very heavy cost. The democratization of the stock market, powered by a commission-free model, is laden with hidden risks. Not least of these is that the system isn’t democratic, and it won’t become democratic without a major fight. Regards, Andy Krieger Editor, Money Trends [Money Trends with Andy Krieger]( Andy Krieger Trading 55 NE 5th Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33483 [www.andykriegertrading.com]( To ensure our emails continue reaching your inbox, please [add our email address]( to your address book. This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you subscribed to this service. If you no longer wish to receive emails from Money Trends with Andy Krieger, [click here](. Andy Krieger Trading welcomes your feedback and questions. But please note: The law prohibits us from giving personalized advice. To contact Customer Service, call toll free Domestic/International: 1-888-206-3481, Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm ET, or email us [here](mailto:feedback@andykriegertrading.com). © 2021 Omnia Research, LLC. All rights reserved. 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