The old tale of Robinhood. “The Prince of Thieves.” A gifted archer and swordsman whose band of outlaws stole from the rich and gave to the poor. A story of vigilantism. A story of uprising. It can inspire. Can test your morales. Or just make you laugh.
Todays Robinhood? A free market stock trading app. “Democratizing finance for all.” A place where anyone with the likes of a phone or computer can ‘invest’ their money with just a few clicks. Heres a free stock, now go lose a couple hundred of your own money once you get an itch for the trading game. Just watch the video they have as their pinned tweet.
I mean come on now. Watch that and tell me you cant become successful in the stock market? Come invest your money with us. We are here for the common man, not the stock market suit you’ve all come to know. A name synonymous with breaking the chains, bucking the system, and a service where YOU can do just that. That is until, you actually start doing that. Until all of the people who that video was directed too, come together and actually do what the general idea of the platform was tailored to allow people to do. Until someone found a chink in the armor. And when the opening in the gates to the playground where only the big dogs play is found, Robinhood is just exposed as a wolf in sheeps clothing. Robinhood becomes Sheriff of Nottingham. Turns on its sword on the contingent of commoners and bends the knee to protect the King.
Now I don’t know diddly about stocks. But over the past 48 hours companies such as $GME, $AMC, $NOK and $NKD all started to be bought faster than Rick Pitino could soil a pair of slacks. Just flying off the stock market shelves. Pushed by Reddit user @wallstreetsbets. It was unprecedented. Never seen before. But the internet is powerful beast, and in this case, that beast just happened to rattle the cage of another animal, rich hedge funds. The trading that was happening was directly effecting the bottom line of some of the most wealthy of the wealthy. And GOD FORBID that happens. No chance will normal every day people make money while, billionaires suffer. This is where Robinhood has to show its true colors.
Restricting transactions on free market trading because the people at the top are getting bullied. That my friends, seems highly illegal. But I’d also guess that when rich hedge fund managers aren’t happy, the government isn’t happy either, so we will see what side of this they deem illegal.
Ain’t no fun when the rabbits got the gun. It would be truly poetic, and overly ironic, if a company, designed to get rich off the common man and make the rich richer, branded off of a folklore of someone who took down the rich in the name of the common man, was actually the galvanizing force that opened the eyes of the masses and exposed a corrupt system?
Woah. I just got a little to Mr. Robot there for my liking. I am not writing this with a Guy Fawkes mask on I swear. I don’t even own $GME. Plus if I were to start a revolution I’d wear this mask.
