Addicted to 'Shorts'

 At some point, around 2011, I was associated with a co-worker who was connected around six hours a day to the stock market.  He'd actually go leave the confines of the vaulted area....get his smart-phone, and review the stock market while sitting in a wi-fi area.  

He and I would have a short conversation at least twice a week....over stock trends.  He was a smart guy.....I would readily admit that. 

But he was obsessive and compulsive about this business.  There was a minimum of one stock trade made daily (usually for $2k to $5k), and it was clear that he was in the day-trader type behavior.  

I asked about profits in a year, and he figured (at least for the last year or two)....he was clearing around $100k a year on the plus side.  It was like a Vegas-game to him....he knew the odds and had his trade capability geared to sell within a minute or two after he sent the order in.  Somedays, he was clearing a thousand dollars profit....somedays maybe five-thousand in profit....and then some days there was the two-thousand loss situation.  

He was reaching a new level of obsession, where 'shorts' were now on his mind. 'Shorts' mean more home-work.....more guessing to future trends, and potentially putting in his mind....at least $10k into the bucket.  

By the time I'd left the Pentagon....he'd done a dozen of these, and 'winning' the majority of them.  

Just in his behavior, I think he was dumping the day-trader behavior in favor of the 'shorts' path to riches.

This week, with all the upswing with GameStop....if you looked at the month-long trend, from $19 a share to $350 a share....the 'short' guys would have come out in force and laid down billion to double-guess that it'd all collapse by yesterday (the last day of business for January).  

Total loss on shorts yesterday because GameStop didn't collapse?  Twenty-odd billion dollars (so they say) minimum.  Some are putting the numbers nearer to seventy-billion dollars.  

It's an incredible number of people pissed-off.  Some people probably were a quarter-million in the hole, and will have to appear in front of their spouse....explaining this sudden loss of capital.

My former associate?  I have no idea what he's been up to....but at a bare minimum, he probably had at least $20,000 bet on a short. He might have been fairly stupid and put $100k up.

The problem here...is a massive mental syndrome going on, with the idea that you know 'shorts' up and down, and can feel 90-percent confident in putting down $10k, $20k, or $100k.....that's it's a virtually guaranteed payoff or 'win'.  And in this case....a massive loss.

The need for Congress or the banking industry to hold meetings and investigate this?  What?  You will investigate stupid idiots who aren't thinking clearly, filled with high-risk behavior, and can't handle money?  Then you go and suggest that you need to make laws that only high-risk people can buy stock and will do to with mature behavior?  Oh, please.....what a joke.

A nation of addicted behavior folks, and we have to listen to Congressmen/Senators feel sorry for them?  No, we don't need this level of incompetent leadership.  

Footnote:  I don't think the bad-boys who handled GameStop are done, and you might see this repeat five or six times this year.  

'Green Zone' Mentality

 To ensure the protection of the Baghdad 'Green Zone'.....they would eventually put up concrete barriers and significant fencing....to say that everything within the zone was 'safe'.

So yesterday, if you follow DC news....the acting chief of the Capital Police said in a statement...a permanent security fence has to now exist in DC.

The need for back-up forces?  Yes, that got mentioned as well.

What I'll predict?  I'll make five predictions:

1.  The Capital Police get bumped up from 2,000 personnel to 3,000 by the end of 2021, 4,000 by 2022, and to 5,000 to 6,000 by 2023.

2.  There will be some secondary group attached them, probably to be referred to as Capital 'Minute-Men'....a military-like civilian group of fifteen-hundred-odd personnel, with armored vehicles, APCs, etc....based within the newly created DC 'Green Zone'.  

3.  Some kind of 'Green Zone' will exist to circle the White House, and angle eastward along Pennsylvania Avenue....protecting the DC 'State-House' created, the FBI building, the old Post Office building (currently the Trump Hotel), and ending around the Capital building/Supreme Court area.  Union Station and the various subway areas used for tourism will be left.  International guests will be shocked at the amount of security, and suggest that the nation is under permanent siege.

4.  The amount of security will reach a level that Senate/House staff members can't readily enter with ease, and some will suggest permanently moving their staffs beyond DC itself (into Virginia or Maryland).

5.  The 'Green Zone' mentality will not end at DC.  Various cities and states will funnel tens of billions into security fencing around city halls, and state houses.  At least a dozen states by 2024 will have siege-patrols ready to go with armored vehicles and a hundred military-garbed personnel prepared for massive action in each zone.

All of this reaching a comical belief by the public that an invasion is imminent, but it's not by the North Koreans, Nazis, Chinese, or Russians. 

The Bickering Era

 It's a great piece written by Laura Hollis on Townhall....entitled: 'America Grows Sick on a Diet of Propaganda and Political Theater'.  I'd strongly recommend a read.

She basically drives at the logic that what we see on TV and via the media....is mostly fake news and scripted propaganda.  Her end-point is that the nation has a lack of leadership, which I'd readily agree with.

For ten to fifteen years, I've essayed a number of pieces which lay out the trend of poor communication, hype, and indoctrination.  It's reached a level in the past year or two....where even local news has stepped in and tried to be 'tools' of indoctrination as well.

Trying to sell newspapers or magazines today?  People are going to the mindset of just saying 'no' and refusing to buy the propaganda pieces.  As a news magazine, there's virtually no real profit being generated, and most are falling apart.  

Looking for viewers for your news network on cable?  A lot of them have quit CNN and Fox.  

How we survive the next four years with the current landscape?  Unknown.  If you were looking for a lessening of propaganda machines, or political bickering....I don't think you will find it.  Neither Biden or Harris have proven much in the past at leadership skills.  My suspicion is that whatever level of frustration we have today...will only double over the next couple of years.