GME is the only time where investment is fine and dandy - you're not reaming over any workers, we're just getting scraps from a fight between some hedge-funds. And that's great, I'm in on it too. I love the memes, it makes me happy to see people share posts about being debt-free (hopefully I will be too when this is all over), being able to afford medical expenses, or just finally catching a break in this hell-year. This is the one time it's ok to invest in a stock.
Suddenly turning around and wanting to "invest" is not great, and does not bring me joy. The gains you make trading stocks, are taken directly out of a workers pocket. It's not an honest dollar.
Shareholders and wall-street guys aren't hated because they're rich (exclusively). They're hated because they're parasites. They add no value, they do nothing.
If you are a stocktrader, or dependent on it for your life, I'm not trying to hit you with lifestyleism.
You do you. But don't start asking for an investment community on a leftist forum - like we're not struggling enough with chuds. What are you gonna do; hit us with a quote from Marx, whilst putting out some info on why Target is the next big thing?
To make it big as a stock trader, you have to have a shitton of money already. Whatever it is you're working with, it's pennies compared to even the tiniest hedgefund (and if it's not :stalin-shining: wtf you doing here?)
If you make it big trading stocks, your material interests are directly opposed to that of the working class.
If you donate all your gains, you will not be able to effectively trade.
If you don't donate your gains, why are you doing this?
No matter what you do, you're expropriating wealth from workers. Who are you to decide where their money goes?
"They will sell us the rope..." "Marx was a day-trader..." yadayadayada
TRUE
Marx was a daytrader way back before high-frequency-trading. Stalin was a bankrobber, Lenin probably did some spooky shit too. A lot of those guys did a whole bunch of crimes.
STEAL THE ROPE.
Sorry for the rant.
Ok people can we be fucking materialists about this shit please?
Yes you are technically correct that making your living off of being a day trader is completely parasitic. You are also completely wrong that you need a lot of capital to participate in retail trading overall. Plenty of people get started with less than 100 dollars and they might not get very far but you can make some money and even accumulate enough capital to start really bringing in money.
And yes comrades I know what you’re thinking; how Is that different from being a day trader? One magic ingredient: DEBT! Go on r/Wall Streetbets and count how many stories are either paying off debts or paying for medical processes that should have been free at the point of service. There are hundreds, probably thousands. These fucking Wall Street demons don’t have the same kind of debts that normal people do, if any at all.
So why isn’t this a real redistribution of wealth from the capitalist class back towards people who have undoubtedly spent much more time in their lived doing alienated labor that the capitalist class benefited from? Yes ideally the people making this money from GameStop would be the employees and the people who make the games and game systems. That’s not the reality we have to work with here folks. It’s still a good situation and one to learn from.
On top of that another thing that makes this a truly historic moment we can’t afford to be reactionaries over is that technological change and democratized access to the stock market have created a very unique dynamic that has clearly caught the bourgeoisie class off guard. Obviously what we all want is to democratize the means of production and to have some form of a planned economy where production is dictated by use and not profitability. Like it or not, this is the most Democratic input Americans have ever had on the stock market or the economy. And they’re taking those fucking demons for a ride! The largest transfer of wealth away from the capitalist class that has happened in my lifetime is happening right now and we’re over here trying to make sure we aren’t going to catch any of the runoff users after the inevitable ban.
What is the goal here people? Do you know what made fascism so effective against the communists in Italy when they first came to power? Better access to capital. Do you know what will always be an organizing barrier for our politics? Access to capital. Having capital is not what makes you a capitalist, people. What you do with it is. The revolution will require some amount of capital folks and it’s definitely more than we have access to now.
And These people already understand the stock market is a rigged game, and they fucking print money out of it. They aren’t well groomed Ivy Leaguers. They probably have plenty in common with most of us. It boggles my mind that we would be actively antagonistic towards some of those folks migrating here. Yes the terminology is ableist and offensive, but I can’t think of a better line of attack than to continue to try and exploit things like GME. It simultaneously builds capital, and heightens the contradictions. You’re not being a materialist if you aren’t at least learning from what’s going on right now and rethinking tactics a little.
Again, we will require some amount of capital to build any kind of revolutionary left movement. If for no other reasons than to buy time out of peoples immiserated existences where they’re so burdened with debt they can’t come to a meeting because they have to work.
Obviously we shouldn’t tolerate the same level of discourse but if we can organize enough on this website to accomplish anything even close to what WSB is doing right now than we can actually accomplish something here that threatens power as opposed to just fighting all the time about shit that ultimately doesn’t matter that much.
And we should be humble enough to admit that while we don’t like how they talk, those folks on WSB are much more of a threat to power right now than anyone on this website has ever been. Because they’re acting collectively! Something we also don’t do!
So if WSB is this much of a threat to power through collective action why would we shy away from adopting similar tactics that also allow for us to raise capital that, if nothing else, can remove the boot of debt from some of our comrades necks. A comrade who tries playing the market instead of paying a student loan is doing the right thing IMO. Atleast there’s a chance to be debt free before middle age. Let’s go C/investing. Let’s raise some money and build some fucking power here. Come on people.
The idea that people can win by day trading instead of just investing in a market index is contradicted by the last 30 years of academic research into this topic.
On one hand you’re right.
On the other, $GME.
Ok dude there’s plenty of academic research saying communism is a failed ideology too. That’s not a materialist analysis of the moment we’re in. If you have a ton of capital and time then yes that’s the correct way. But not If you’re correctly viewing the stock market as it’s constituted today as a casino for the rich where they store a lot of their hoarded wealth that we can all just walk into for like a hundred bucks. Yes some of us will lose money but if those of use who can only gamble what we can and we share information and act collectively we can actually extract some fucking wealth back from these demons. I think we’re missing a huge opportunity not trying to catch some of the runoff from WSB or even just not starting our own community for investing. Could anyone here not use more money? Ask yourself, what kind of revolutionary activity could you undertake if you, as a worker, were able to buy back some of your own time from this horrible exploitative system we have to interface with to survive. I’m just saying all this resentment towards the idea of investing is extremely reactionary and ignorant of what makes you a capitalist and what more capital could do to aid any revolutionary left wing movement you can think of. They all are always accepting donations for a reason. Hell maybe even we could all afford to donate more to ChaCha to help our mods get paid for the labor they do. Let’s do this people.
Well fuck I guess why bother listening to academics about anything, right? Climate change isn't real I guess. One stock acting wonky doesn't disprove what the evidence points to: day trading is a losers game. You will not beat the house at this and this GME shit pisses me off because we've got lots of comrades now who are gonna lose money chasing this. You wanna give more of our wealth to the bourgeois? Then yeah, day trading is a great way to do that.
Ok academic analysis of something made up like the stock market and something as real as Ice levels on the poles are inherently different and one analysis is way more likely to be based in material reality than the other. Applying dialectical materialism is not just trusting academic consensus wherever it forms. Sweet straw man tho. Ok listen close: no one should bet more than you can afford to lose. It’s a casino. This is always true of gambling. I hope my comrades get paid but some of them will lose what they invested. As I said, as long as we understand that the stock market is not some sacred institution and is actually a lot more like a casino for the rich then we’ll all be fine if we just treat it that way. I’m sorry but if anyone’s betting more than they can afford to lose then yeah that’s bad. But don’t act like you’re here trying to fucking protect your comrades from losing money or some dumb bullshit like that. If that’s what you really are after you should be in favor of them being more well informed on this. They’re holding right now for a reason. No one should put money into the stock market they aren’t prepared to lose and if they lose it that was the kind of poor judgement we would be advising against in a C/investing comm. oh and guess what? The bourgeoisie don’t even need to take our money, because they control when the money gets printed! That’s what bailouts are! Why would we not want to heighten the contradictions around the stock market? Can no one else see a left wing utility to understanding and participating in the stock market to a limited degree? Yeah it’s contradictory, but isn’t contradiction what dialectics is all about?
Most folks in academic finance know pretty well that markets are screwed up. They work within a paradigm that never considers alternative models to capitalism, so no you're not gonna see many advocating socialism. But the academic world is way more "wow yeah capitalism is screwed up" than people here realize.
Yes, I do care about my comrades. IRL, I'm the one telling my family and friends - begging them, a lot of the time - to stop day trading or owning like 6 stocks or things like that. Because yes, finance isn't the same as climate science but it's not complete junk science either. And what we know is decisively against personal investors doing anything other than index investing.
And yeah, you can say "don't invest more than you can afford to lose" but you know damn well there are comrades who will not heed that advice.
Ok plenty of us also went to college and are aware of the ivory tower. Yep they know and aren’t revolutionary, the SDS taught us that. And I mean they literally had to invent their own Nobel prize so agree to disagree. If it ain’t Marxist economics or financial advising I don’t heed it. the motto is actually don’t BET more than you can afford to lose and that’s the important operative word. But hey if you wanna advise all your friends and family to sell all their other investments Rn then go for it. But IMO, any comrade with GME stock should HOLD TILL 1000$! and hey if you’re so confident on the subject why don’t you try shorting it for like sometime after Friday? It’s literally free money which is obviously a bad thing, but that’s what’s so funny about of all this. Take that green and purple pill all the way to the bank comrade.
Until seven days ago.
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FTFY o7