I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and Mr. Whittle mentioned it too, but the GameStop bubble brought it into focus for me.
If you don’t know what shortselling is, it’s basically a strategy you adopt when you expect a stock to go down in value (you borrow a high-value stock and sell it, buy it when it drops and give it back, and keep the difference). In other words, you buy into a stock when you think the company’s going to succeed, and shortsell when you think it’s going to fail.
I don’t want to get into the specifics of the GameStop situation… because it worked in practice, so I’m trying to see if it works in theory :p
Shortsellers are Pessimists
Basically, shortsellers are the people who come to the table and say that they think a company is going to fail. If you hear someone come up to you and say your company is going to fail, wouldn’t that really ruin your mood, even if you agree? To top it off, they’re actually betting you’re going to fail, which adds insult to injury. They could be right, but it still stings. They’re the ones who take the joy out of life.
What’s worse is the crony market tactic of bluffing – to shortsell a company that might make it, but then the shortsellers go and trumpet the idea that the company will fail to scare people into dropping out; and as they leave, they cause the stock to drop, and lend credibility to the shortsellers’ story and causing more to follow, either by belief or to cut their losses… letting the crony shortsellers make millions on a scheme instead of on reality. These guys are the ones who come over, tell you you’re going to lose, bet against you, then trip you up to make you lose.
Not to Make Everything Political, But…
Political Shortsellers?
What if you take that and apply it to what the Anti-Americans are doing?
Shortselling the American People
Since the 1960’s, our country has had some serious anti-Americanism targeting us. We have enemies who are openly at war with us. We’ve raked up trillions of dollars worth of debt. If you were to evaluate that from a crony shortseller’s point of view, there’s a chance we could come out on top, and there’s a chance we could collapse. It might have been unthinkable to target the United States like any other company before, but if you engineered a virus to shut down our economy, then cheated to get your puppet elected… AND you had control of the media…
You could artificially suppress the value of the United States, and you could put up all the propaganda you like. Get people to ditch the proverbial “stock” of American values. Convince them to cut their losses while they can, and make, well, trillions when the greater fool decides to jump… and watch the United States fail in the process.
Bit of a Stretch, Right? Conspiracy Theory?
The Trump Hiccup
American values have been under attack for a while now. Slowly, steadily, the value of our “stock” was dropping. Obama was pouring trillions of dollars into our debt. We were poised to fail. The Anti-Americans were poised to shortsell us into oblivion. But we elected Trump, and he restored our faith in American values. Our “stock” started to rise, and the Anti-Americans started to feel the squeeze. Because Trump was right: American values were severely undervalued.
The Anti-American Response
Because of this, the Anti-Americans doubled down on their efforts: shut down the economy, quarantine the people, cheat a puppet dictator into office. Just like how Wall Street has tried to stop the trading of GameStop’s stocks.
They’re trying to make the United States fail. Because they can acquire untold value if they shortsell the most valuable nation in the world into oblivion… if they shortsell the idea of freedom, which is priceless.
The Positivity of Americans
On a whole, I think the American people are a happy people. We are prosperous, even to the point where there is an entire category of humor based on the “problems” we face: first-world problems. We are naturally happy, confident, self-sufficient people. We are the partiers of the world; we know how to have a good time our entire lives, not just here and there. We make rocket-powered school buses, for goodness’ sake! We take a dull, boring calculating machine and turn it into the gateway to fictional worlds with high-end graphics and artificial intelligence and ways to get to other planets. We are a happy people.
Aggressive American Optimism
Among the many things that Trump did to help us succeed is he showed the American people that the American value “stock” is being artificially suppressed. That it is, in fact, worth a hell of a lot more than it’s currently valued at. And people are seeing that. People are at a point where they’re willing to say “I don’t care what you say about it” and buy into it anyway, because people are starting to trust their own lying eyes more.
I don’t care what you say about him, I’m still voting for Trump.
I don’t care what you say about Star Wars, the Disney movies aren’t canon.
I don’t care what you say about Biden, he isn’t the President.
I don’t care what you say about WallStreetBets or GME, I’m in it to squeeze.
I don’t care what you say about the United States, I’m proud to be an American.
My Stance
I am on an emotional rebound. My pride in my country is unbound and growing by the day. My faith in God and in movements larger than myself gives me all the strength and value I ever want or care for. It will dwarf all I knew before because I didn’t know what I was talking about before. I didn’t know exactly how important and powerful and unstoppable the American spirit can be.
To all you nay-sayers out there, if your first instinct is to get pessimistic or cynical, save it. I don’t care what you say.
I am HAPPY.
14 replies on “I Am HAPPY | Aggressive American Optimism vs. Political Shortsellers”
“To all you nay-sayers out there, if your first instinct is to get pessimistic or cynical, save it. I don’t care what you say.”
^^^This.
I like the first half a lot. I have reservations on what follows, but chose to keep them for myself — for now.
Yeah, optimism is a force, have it, spread it. Just remember that pride comes before the fall and just declaring things good does not make them so.
The optimism works ONLY through the positive ACTIONS it leads to (just as pessimism’s effect is not through the mood but by preventing the relevant work).
In short, don’t worry, be happy, while keep working on actual improvements.
Are you asserting that being optimistic is prideful? And that somehow that is an anti-virtue?
Are you alleging that the author is advocating feelings over actions?
Are you looking to attack people?
A technical correction on the economics of short selling:
Yes, it’s not wrong to say that short sellers are “betting” that a stock will go down. But it’s rarely the case that they think the company they’re shorting will fail. The vast majority of short-selling is short term; get in, wait for a natural downward fluctuation in price, then get out.
In broader economic terms, short-selling on failing companies serves a legitimate and important function, moving capital from places where it’s not providing value to other places that are. In the current case, there is no doubt that GameStop will go out of business at some point. Its business model has fallen to better alternatives, namely, online streaming. Just like Blockbuster lost out on video rentals, there’s simply no need for GameStop any more and that change is obvious – their customers don’t do business with them any more. It’s better for everyone that it stop tying up capital that could be better put to use in profitable ventures. Shorting performs a valuable economic function. There’s nothing pessimistic about it.
And businessmen know that not all businesses succeed and none last forever – if someone gets their feelings hurt by their business failing it means they put emotion over sense and they were likely to fail anyway. When my business failed in 2007, I didn’t take it personally, I moved on to the next thing because I had prepared for the possibility that I might not succeed. That was the rational thing to do, not put my whole psychological well-being into my business.
Lastly, when you buy stock expecting it to increase in value (“go long” as opposed to “go short”), all you can lose is the money you put in. With shorting, if you’re wrong, there is a theoretically infinite potential loss because if the stock goes up, you have to put in more money, however much it takes, to get out of your position. It’s a big risk and it doesn’t pay off any more often than buying for the upside does.
Now, your second point is correct, shorting can be used to manipulate the market and those who do so are morally wrong and in violation of the law. (So can going long, by artificially hyping a stock to make the price go up – this happens all the time with so-called penny stocks. Ever received an email or seen an article saying “This stock is about to take off!” or something?)
The important part here is that market manipulation is fraud and is, properly, illegal. It’s very difficult to get away with, too, and moreso the bigger the fraud you try to pull off. So there are very few who try. Very much the exception rather than the rule, so it’s not a huge problem.
I meant to upvote you, but looked away for a moment and hit the wrong thumb.
I am not upset to see a Hedge Fund lose money over this. GameStop was losing when they put in the Short Sell order. I doubt they intended anything as useful as market correction.
I also doubt they intended Market Manipulation. They were just throwing their considerable weight around. Hedge Funds and a longish list of Derivatives are why I really don’t care what the DOW is doing these days.
I care about seeing too many awnings with the business’ names cut out. I care about seeing vacant stores that are being rented out. A Popeye’s opened near us. It is owned by Chinese. I congratulate them on their daring, and bought on the Soft Opening Day.
Wall Street is as important to me as Belmont Race Track these days.
Well the pursuit of happiness is codified in the US.
Implicitly only in the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence mentions it explicitly, but the Declaration isn’t law.
Maybe not “law” but it was a declaration of divorce from England. And thus, after some extensive growing pains, a new nation was established. The laws were consequent. The declaration followed through is rather more profound than law.
Don’t assume I’m complaining about anything here. I’m only clarifying the point about the pursuit of happiness being “codified.” Jack is British and probably doesn’t know the details of how exactly the Declaration was implemented in the Constitution.
Plus our constitution isn’t even written down. I studied constitutional law for a year and still only have a rudimentary idea of where the important bits are.
What do you mean it isn’t written down? Isn’t there an original written document, plus a plethora of copies?
Did anything in my words look like I was assuming you were complaining? It is curious that your response is defensive right off the block.
In my mind, at the time I composed my reply, I was expressing a point of view, a personal opinion that was and is about me.
Amen……………..and Awoman.
Seriously, very well said.