GameStop: Why this time is different- Open letter to WallStreet and CNBC
Note: I posted this on r/Wallstreetbets originally before it was taken down by its moderators for its political slant.
Dear WallStreet and CNBC,
You have been calling this a speculative bubble, that GameStop will ultimately crash down to earth, and that the “little guys” are going to get hurt. Jim Cramer wants us to “take your home run” and sell. You use words like “fundamentals” and “valuations” and says that the stock price is not justified.
Here’s the fundamental: I am an ER doctor that trained in inner city Detroit. When I was a resident physician, Obama was president. During his presidency, the quality of life of the predominantly African-Americans in the city did not improve. Despite Obamacare, I saw little improvement in the health outcomes of the patients I worked with. I saw continued proliferation of illicit drugs, overdoses, and gang violence. YOU have left these people behind.
I spent the last several years working in a small town in the Midwest, when Trump was president. During his presidency, the quality of life of the predominantly white Americans also did not improve, and have in fact worsened. I saw continued proliferation of illicit drugs, overdoses, and suicides. These patients I care for are also people whom YOU have left behind.
With the pandemic, I have seen those who are already at the brink of financial solvency lose their jobs and I see lines outside food banks. I see the health outcomes of my patients decline as they forego preventive care. I, on the other hand, kept my job, got a raise, and saw the value of my 401k rise as the economy crashed around me. Going to work every day is a constant and stark reminder of the brokenness and disparity of the economic system and my sheer powerlessness to change it. I realize now that it is not political. It is YOU.
I own GameStop because represents something to me. It is the very embodiment of the millennial generation that you have left behind- a down-and-out aging retailer that you feel is no longer worth investing in. We ARE GameStop. We are not selling because we believe in ourselves and investing in ourselves. We WANT to see it succeed.
I am fully aware that I have benefited from having a 401k and it is what is supporting your industry. But this also means that YOU work for ME. I fully expect you to fuck over my generation to save yourselves by running to the politicians and regulators that you have bought to stop the squeeze and get them to suspend trading on $GME. It is not lost on us that the former Fed chair Ben Bernanke is a senior advisor at Citadel and that you paid Janet Yellen $800,000 in speaking fees. You will tell them that this is a “systemic risk” and that this will “crash the entire financial system”. You will remind them what happened after they let Lehman Brothers fail in 2008. Don’t.
If you are a politician or a regulator reading this, don’t listen to their bullshit. If you intervene, stop trading of $GME, bail out hedge funds and big banks like you have in the past and try to placate us by dragging a few hedge fund managers in front of a congressional hearing, you’ll unite the entire country against YOU. Make sure you are on the right side of this. You work for US too.
This country is broken and fractured. You have goaded us into tearing each other apart for years. This is the first time that I have seen the entire country rally behind a single cause. You have given us a reason to unite- against you and the system you have built and upheld.
I own GameStop not because Diamond Hands. I own GameStop because I AM GameStop. I am choosing to invest in my generation, and selling would be selling myself out.
