RE: Gamestop and r/wallstreetbets
A friend sent me this response to last week’s newsletter:
“Only thing I’d add is that money is a platform, and the ultra-wealthy have done the inverse of renewing their responsibility. They’re clearly shirking it and are acutely self-interested.”
I had originally written last week that all of these populist heroes were “contributing to the cheapening of an underlying piece of America, whether it be the stock market or the presidency.” I cut the line because it seemed weird to call the stock market an underlying piece of America, but it absolutely is. We are blessed with the stability needed for “long-term investing” to be a part of the average person’s financial vocabulary. That’s not the case everywhere.
But if Barstool is partly responsible for turning the market into a joke, then where does that leave hedge funds and other financial giants? I won’t get into the nitty gritty here (see Matt Levine), but the Gamestop story came about in part because we let a lot of powerful people treat our precious stock market like some sort of video game, with quant funds and short sellers and options traders seemingly disconnected from the actual process of investing in companies. All behaviors that improve “market efficiency,” maybe, but if your grandmother doesn’t recognize it as food, it ain’t food. Same should go for the stock market.
I wrote last week that this Gamestop mess and the Capitol riot were similarly co-opted populist movements, but I missed the link between Republican politicians and wealthy financiers as irresponsible stewards of critical American assets. Both have been given immense responsibility over their domains. And like many Republicans on January 6th, at some point, these finance guys have to realize that the sillier they make the stock market seem, the higher the risk it will all come crashing down, right? Unless any volatility is good volatility. Who knows anymore. Soon enough we’ll have “chaos funds,” which stimulate populist rage and institutional disarray for above-market returns. Get ready to take a flyer.
On a more serious note, Andrew Ross Sorkin had a good list of suggested remedies in the NYT this week:
- A transaction tax for high-frequency traders
- Disclosure of short positions
- End private meetings between companies and big investors
- Access to private investments for anyone with smarts, not wealth
- End payment for order flow
- Reintroduce the Buffett Rule
Not perfect, but an interesting start. No reason to direct all the anger at Robinhood!
Geoguessr, Zoom and Digital Travel
On Thursday, during my English conversation class, we played Geoguessr. For the uninitiated, Geoguessr is a game where you have to guess your location after being dropped someplace random on Google Streetview. It’s awesome and lends itself very well to Zoom, where it’s been a fun option to play on calls with friends from college.
It looks like this:
It is also – no surprise to anyone – the perfect game to play with a group of international English students. At one point on Thursday, we found ourselves on an empty stretch of highway in an area that looked like Texas. “America has so, so many street signs, and here there are none,” a student said. “And their cars are nicer. Those cars are luxury in this country, but not in America.” It turned out we were in Botswana.
One student, an Iranian woman who spent most of her life living in Japan, was thrilled to play an iteration of the game in Tokyo. “Oh my God, that’s Tokyo! It’s so beautiful, so clean, so small, and so narrow!” She was on an iPad her son had bought her for Christmas, and this was her first experience with Streetview. It was pretty cool to be along for the ride as she rediscovered her old neighborhood and found her old house in a virtual environment.
Later, in another round of the game, we dropped in front of the strange building below, and I knew exactly where we were – “I think I bought a hot dog from that food stand.” It was the base of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, which a friend and I visited back in 2015. I couldn’t believe it.
There are so many of these absurdly cool applications of today’s technology, and it’s easy to take them all for granted. Streetview is by no means new. But there is something so cool about the sequence of virtual events that led to our Tokyo tour, from meeting this Iranian-by-way-of-Japan student through a Meetup a few months ago, discovering Geoguessr with college friends, and then putting the pieces together on Thursday.
I’ve always been someone who “loves to travel,” but what does that even mean? What I really love is discovery of new things, and while that can happen on the streets of Lima, it can also happen walking through Queens, or during conversations with people scattered around the globe.
Geoguessr may seem like some silly game, but it’s a pretty powerful way to learn about the world and connect with other people. And that’s really all that travel is.
New Vocab
Seth Godin wrote something great on his blog this week:
“Statistically, whatever you build online isn’t going to get a lot of traffic. There are no magic shortcuts in open systems, because the short head depends on scarcity. By the time you show up to chase the cool kids, it’s probably too late to guarantee a sinecure.”
“What’s the alternative? Publish. Consistently. With patience… Getting picked is great, when it works. Someone needs to be in the spotlight and it might as well be you. In the meantime, catch your breath, show up and contribute.”
Great reminder of the importance of just lacing up your shoes and getting out there, whether for a run or something else.
Another thing to come from the post: I learned a new word!
A sinecure is a “position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit.” I imagine the Soviet Union had a lot of sinecures. Positions like the Minister of Arboreal Propaganda for Eastern Siberia. Something like that.
The word comes from sine cura, which is Latin for “without care.” Apparently it’s pronounced sign-a-cure, but I read it as sin-ye-cure. I also thought arboreal was pronounced ar-bo-real, when it’s actually ar-bo-re-al. Idiotic, I know…
If you’ve never heard Seth Godin speak, I would highly recommend it – this Tim Ferriss interview is a good place to start. If I tried to use sinecure in a blog post I’d sound like an a**hole, but I think Godin just chose the perfect word for what he needed to say. There really aren’t any good synonyms for sinecure, are there? He also seems to be the last person on Earth using the word:
I don’t often come across English words I’ve never seen before, so when I do I get excited!
I’ve had a ton of ideas for future newsletters this week, but need to let them marinate for a little. Plus, the snow is back in New York, it’s Super Bowl Sunday and it didn’t feel like the day to tuck into something substantial.
So I hope you enjoyed this week’s grab bag and see you back here next Sunday.
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
Friday Ramble February 5th – Musical stupidity and running update (Blog, 2 min)
Friday Ramble – January 29th Trying something new (Blog, 2 min)
What I’m Reading:
Saying Goodbye to an Endless Year With a 24-Hour Race – Jen Miller, NYT
“It sounded like a good way to mark the end of a dreadful year. In that moment, in the dark, the snow didn’t feel like magic. It felt like mutiny. But I couldn’t stop moving forward. I had 15 hours to go.”
The Diminishing Returns of Productivity – Anne Helen Peterson
“The self-worth derived from simply ‘getting things done’ is insufficient. At some point the brain and body says no. Nowhere is it more apparent than in the endless Wednesday of the eleventh month of attempting to work from home against the backdrop of a horrific pandemic.”
What I’m Listening To:
Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division (Spotify, Youtube)
From Fired to FI Couple in 2 Years with Josh and Ali – Bigger Pockets Money Podcast
“No, it was actually kind of a problem. Like it would get to the point where I would be like, ‘How many podcasts did you listen to today?’ And he was like, ‘Seven.'”
What I’m Watching:
Contratiempo (english: The Invisible Guest) – Netflix
Any fan of Christopher Nolan’s Memento will love this