More than the spigot being arbitrarily turned off, the people really being hurt by this do not have the resources hedge fund managers do. They won’t be able to ask wealthy friends (like the government) for bailouts. They’ll just be left out. It sucks. All of this is so deeply fake, and now, before our eyes, the facade is ripped away. The irony that all of this is going down because of an app called Robinhood is not lost on me. Rob from the rich, give to the—no not like that.

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When things calm down, maybe I’ll go back to Robinhood or find another app to do some longer-term investing. It seems like all the trading apps are capitulating to their Wall Street overlords, so it’ll be hard to find one reputable enough that still has a spine.

When you play a game like this, you gotta follow the rules. In a fair and equitable society, the rules apply equally to everyone. Not that I need a stock market parable to show me, but today’s shenanigans with Robinhood and the precipitous drop of all the hot stocks now that none of the “regular” people are allowed to trade them really does nail home the point that everyone can play this game so long as the right (i.e., rich) people win. They’re like the older sibling who begrudgingly lets the younger one play video games with them but gives them a controller that’s not plugged in. We figured out how to plug in the controller. So now the game’s been taken away.