The Gamestop fiasco reveals our ruling oligarchs at their worst

 

A week or so ago, I quoted Prof. Angelo Codevilla's view that America is now an oligarchy.  That's become even clearer in the current imbroglio over short-selling of Gamestop shares.

The hedge funds that usually make fortunes at this game were caught off-guard by "ordinary folks" like you and I, who organized on Reddit and began their own short-selling campaign to force the hedge funds into closing out their short positions at far higher costs.  The result was that Robinhood, a popular trading app, restricted trading in Gamestop yesterday, and some of its members even had their purchases reversed without permission or authorization - all so that the hedge funds and other financial oligarchs could close out their short positions at lower cost.

That's flagrantly illegal, of course - but the financial "powers that be" don't care about that.  They don't even care that it was so visible that it can't be hidden or denied.  They reckon they're above the law.

Tucker Carlson covered the situation in depth in his program last night.  It's a vitally important issue, far more so than just about the stock market, because it shows the same pattern of disregard for the law and the will of the people that we saw in November's elections.  Basically, the oligarchs said, "The people can't be trusted to vote in the politicians we want, so we're going to sabotage and manipulate the elections to get the results we want."  Now they've done exactly the same thing to the stock market, shutting out ordinary people in order to get the result - and the profit - that they want.

If you prefer to read rather than listen, you'll find a transcript of most of Tucker's discussion here.  However, I do strongly urge that you either listen and watch, or read, or even both, because this is vitally important.

EDITED ON 01/30/2021 TO ADD:  Well, well, well.  Guess what?  YouTube has taken down, or made private (and hence not embeddable) every video of Tucker Carlson's broadcast about the Gamestop affair.  Big Tech is (yet again) censoring news it doesn't want us to hear.  Fortunately, you can still see the video (or most of it) at the Fox News link in the preceding paragraph.  I highly recommend that you click over there and watch it for yourself, or read the transcript.

As one poster on Gab summed it up:

They killed Epstein and told us it was suicide and every normal person knew it was bull**** and it didn’t matter, and then they blatantly rigged the election, and then blatantly rigged the stock market. They don’t care anymore.

I couldn't have put it better myself.  They don't care anymore that we see their manipulation in action.  They think they can do as they please and get away with it.  After all, they stole an election, didn't they?  What's a little stock market shenanigans compared to that?  They think we'll forget about it soon enough, and things will return to normal - that is, their normal.  We'll still be screwed.

This is why I said it was so important to oppose the electoral fraud that was so obviously in play last November.  Those behind it successfully manipulated the courts into refusing to actually examine the evidence of fraud, and allow the purported results to stand.  As a result, we now have an illegitimate Administration in Washington.  As the Gamestop imbroglio illustrates, we also have an illegitimate financial system, rigged in favor of the oligarchs who control it - and now that the Trump administration is gone, Washington D.C. encourages and tolerates that.

What those oligarchs appear to have forgotten is that all their machinations are only going to work as long as most people don't get fed up enough to take action.  The Redditors who've just watched themselves blocked - and in some cases impoverished - by the financial powers that be, are not going to go away.  They're going to be angry as ****, and rightly so.  If they, and others like them, decide to burn down the entire financial system by causing so many disruptions that it can't operate normally, there isn't much the oligarchs can do to stop them, except stop all public trading and perform their machinations "out of sight and (they hope) out of mind".  That won't work - not in today's integrated, automated, online world, where every secret is one leak away from being exposed.

The veil is being torn away.  Everybody can now see for themselves that "the Emperor has no clothes" - and instead of "going with the flow" and pretending that he does, they're mocking and pointing fingers.

Our society is becoming dangerously destabilized, and those at the top are responsible, because they've become so larcenous that their greed - for money, for power, for control - is unbalancing everything.  From the politicians who enter office as ordinary middle-class Americans and leave it as multi-millionaires, to the financiers who pay themselves six- and seven-figure bonuses every year for fleecing ordinary investors in the markets;  they're all in bed with each other, and all determined to make out like gangsters.  They've lost all discretion.  They want it their way, and they're determined to get it by hook or by crook;  but in doing so, they've exposed themselves, and that makes them vulnerable.

They may think they can use the courts, and the law, and the trappings of officialdom, to protect their ill-gotten gains.  However, that won't stop angry Americans from finding out who's behind this (who's benefited from it, who's made money, who's shafted everyone else), and going after them personally, as individuals.  I won't be surprised to see some of those behind this fiasco suffering very direct consequences from it - and I won't shed a single tear for them if they do.  It'll be no more than they deserve.

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  Brian Niemeier has similar thoughts, even more cogently expressed, and forecasts more fiscal (and other) mayhem to come.  Go read.  He also traces the trail right back to the White House.  This could be catastrophic for the Biden administration.