We’ve seen the lawfare against Trump meant to destroy both his candidacy and himself. We’ve seen the party claiming “Democracy is on the ballot” attempt to wipe Donald Trump’s name off that same ballot. We’ve watched as he was convicted of 36 felonies for doing exactly what Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid a mere $8,000 fine for. We watched as Matthew Colangelo resigned from the Biden DOJ so he could prosecute Donald Trump in New York, while the Biden Administration claimed with a straight face that they were not involved in any way.

We have watched two assassination attempts, one where bullets flew and another where they were waiting. The second attempt was prompted by rhetoric from the Democrats that Trump was a fascist and a danger to Democracy. Rhetoric that the Democrats have only ratcheted up since that attempt.

We have watched as the Democrats have installed a different Presidential Nominee without a primary for voters to select their candidate. While this is pretty uncharted territory, I do not believe history will look back favorably on this, and future precedent will likely be written by the Supreme Court in opposition to it.

This is an election unlike any other, and it is indeed consequential.

Trump has courted Libertarians specifically by coming to their convention where he promised to free Ross Ulbricht, protect Bitcoin and place a Libertarian in his cabinet. These are definitely some wins. However there are even bigger wins that Trump did not announce at the Libertarian convention.

One common criticism that Libertarians have of Republicans is that they never actually cut spending or eliminate wasteful departments. This has been true up until now. Trump is tapping Elon Musk to launch a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to address this very thing. Who better than Elon Musk to drastically reduce Federal agencies like he did to the headcount at Twitter? OK OK fine, yes Ron Paul, you got me there.

It’s a good thing Elon Musk agrees with you.

Trump has assembled the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, Elon Musk, and yes, Ron Paul now too. It is a team of great people all tapped for specific strengths to be used in Trump’s second cabinet which is shaping up a whole lot better than his first one.

However the most consequential thing may come after the next 4 years are over. If Trump wins this election, then all the establishment Republicans and neocon warmongers who have aligned themselves with the Democrats will be stuck there. They will have no credibility after such a loss. If Trump loses however, they will have credibility to ooze their way back in.

A Trump win creates a vacuum in 4 years when Trump’s 2nd term is over. It’s a vacuum that beaten neocons would not be able to recapture and fill. The Ron Paul conservatives, the Vivek Ramaswamys and JD Vances and those who love liberty should position themselves to fill that vacuum.

This is a consequential election, and getting Trump over the finish line sets us up for even bigger wins in the long term. These are wins we can actually pat ourselves on the back for and take credit for. We’re responsible for freeing Ross. We’re responsible for Republicans cutting spending. Let’s take those wins and own them.

The post The Libertarian Moment Has Arrived—And It’s Riding on Trump’s 2024 Win appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Musk as well made good on a promise to bring about more transparency to Twitter. He gave journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss access to all of the internal communications regarding the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The day before the bombshell report by Matt Taibbi, I tweeted a reply to Elon Musk requesting my previous suspended account, as well as a few friends who have been suspended for dubious reasons to have our accounts reinstated. This included my prior account Guy Squiggs, as well as Joshua Smith, the Vice Chairman of the Libertarian Party.

Taibbi’s report the following day was as shocking as it was entertaining. Elon Musk has his own spin on Occam’s Razor, the law stating that the simplest explanation is the most likely. Elon’s Razor, on the other hand, states that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely. Elon’s Razor proved accurate, as tweet #8 in Taibbi’s 36 tweet long report especially stood out to me. I, Guy Squiggs, was in that tweet. Of course I was.

In this tweet the world saw my previous account being “requested for review” by the Biden Campaign, and then being “handled.” Musk himself responded to this particular tweet asking, “If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?” Then in the next tweet we learned that the same thing had happened to actor James Woods. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show vowing to file a lawsuit, and I will be closely paying attention.

Large Twitter accounts such as Scott Presler and Libs of TikTok were sharing screenshots of my old account which has been permanently suspended for about two years now. This disclosure for Taibbi might possibly be providing context for that suspension.

This all began on October 14th 2020, when New York Post published a bombshell exposé revealing emails recovered on a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden. Both Twitter and Facebook heavily throttled the story and prevented it from being spread, and Twitter took the extraordinary step of locking New York Post from its Twitter account. 

Twitter cited a “hacked materials” policy, but Taibbi revealed that Twitter executives didn’t believe that reason would hold up. The materials published were no longer the property of Hunter Biden, so his consent is no longer needed. They were the property of the repair shop he abandoned the laptop at, whose owner willfully turned over this material.

Following the censorship of New York Post, with the corporate mainstream media claiming the story was Russian disinformation, I set out looking for leaks of this material. Many photos from the laptop were leaked on Parler, where I spent an unfortunate amount of time looking at Hunter Biden’s nudes so you don’t have to. One photo however really alarmed me, which I censored and shared to Twitter. This tweet can be viewed in its original integrity in the archives on wayback, despite the account being suspended.

The photo, like many released on Parler, showed Hunter exposing himself (which was censored prior to being posted on Twitter). Behind Hunter however was a balcony where a girl was sitting. She appeared to be young, but the question was how young? That was the question, and that was the tweet’s entire purpose. This was the tweet that the Biden campaign requested to be removed. It’s also still a question I think is worth an answer.

While I have always wanted my old account back, now I heavily desire its return as it is part of a profound moment in history. That account vindicates everything conservatives believed was happening against them, but only up until now could be proven. I understand that the mass reinstatement of accounts is a work in progress, but I would humbly beg Twitter to reinstate the accounts listed in my pinned tweet. I also will eagerly be paying attention to any steps James Woods takes.

The post HANDLED: Guy Squiggs Reacts to Being Censored on Twitter appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

A recent (and substantial) donation made to the Canadian Trucker GoFundMe seems to have Musk’s fingerprints on it. The donation came from the name “www.liar.com” (which redirects to Justin Trudeau’s Wikipedia Page) for the amount of $42,069. 

Musk has had an affinity for pairing the numbers 420 and 69 together, previously slashing the price of the Tesla Model S to $69,420. Musk’s birthday is on June 28th, exactly 69 days after 4/20. 

However the donation no longer appears on the GoFundMe campaign since GoFundMe decided to freeze the campaign funds, and Canadian officials are attempting to have those funds turned over to the government instead of the truckers. Whoever the donor was apparently had the donation refunded in light of those developments. 

Musk has also been critical of the Biden Administration for refusing to acknowledge Tesla as an EV Leader. Biden has instead lavished praise on Ford and GM for being the EV Leaders, who have developed and sold far fewer electric vehicles than Tesla. Musk praised journalist Sara Eisen, who pressed Brian Deese, White House Director of the Economic Council, on their refusal to say the word “Tesla.”

A petition has also been circulating to compel the Biden Administration to acknowledge Tesla.

While online petitions are popular, realistically they achieve little or nothing. The Tesla community, much like Musk himself, value results.

Tesla owners appear to be brewing a plan to force the Tesla name on the Administration by making it unavoidable. This plan is to flood DC streets with an army of Tesla vehicles until Biden can say the word “Tesla.” While this appears to be in the beginning stages, many Tesla owners appear to be supportive. Some have floated the date 4/20 for DC arrival.

The post Is A Tesla Convoy Army Heading To DC? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Musk Tweeted out that Canadian truckers rule, who are currently in a 50km long convoy bound for Ottowa in protest of vaccine mandates. He also followed up the tweet stating that CB Radios (which truckers use for communication) are free from government and media control.

A responder to Elon commented that government overreach was getting out of control, to which he replied that freedom is being stripped away one piece at a time until it’s gone. He later tweeted that if you scare people enough, they will demand removal of their own freedom.

Musk then turned his ire to basically everyone in government all over Twitter.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara tweeted in response to Musk saying during yesterday’s earnings call that he was pushing to change the rules on telematics for California drivers. Lara stated that they would not budge.

Musk replied that Lara should be voted out of office, and that Lara is the reason why California insurance premiums are so high.

A Twitter user replied to Musk stating that the people should be able to decide whether their driving data is shared with the government, which Elon replied exactly.

An article was posted on Disclose TV stating that Sweden would not be mandating vaccinations for children 5-11 years of age. Musk replied that he was in awe of Sweden. An account replied stating that Denmark was looking to axe their mandates, to which Musk replied with a thumbs up.

Elon also shared a Lord of the Rings meme stating that government would be unwilling to give up their newfound emergency powers.

Peter Attia posted an article about why he was both pro vaccine and anti-mandate, which earned a reply of approval from Elon.

Next Elon took shots at the United Nations, asking why they haven’t released the global death data from 2020 yet, and followed up with a meme indicating that the UN takes money in exchange for doing nothing.

UPDATE: Elon Musk has since deleted the meme he posted with this tweet, and a screenshot is being placed in the article.

President Biden continues to hock GM and Ford as the EV Leaders while never mentioning the name Tesla, the actual leading American EV manufacturer. Elon stated that Biden is treating the American people like fools.

Musk then jumped into President Biden’s tweet, making it known that Tesla is leading the EV Revolution, and during the exchange called Biden a damp sock puppet in human form.

The post Elon Praises Canadian Truckers, Unloads On Government appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Warren sent a tweet repeating the lie that Elon Musk doesn’t pay taxes, when this tax year he will pay more than any one individual in history has, estimated around $10 billion. While Elon Musk does not pay the Federal Income Tax because he doesn’t actually have a cash income, he pays Capital Gains taxes on his Tesla stock options, the means by which he is compensated. Yet, progressive leftists continue to insist he doesn’t pay income tax, even though the truth is that he’s paying substantially.

Musk fired back at Warren, reminding her of her fraudulent claims of being Native American in order to get preferential admissions treatment to college. She even wrote a book called Pow Wow Chow, which by progressives’ own rules, I suppose we could consider cultural appropriation. When in reality, Elizabeth Warren is 1/1024 Native American. Former President Donald Trump, who referred to Warren as Pocahontas, effectively goaded her into taking a DNA test, where she found her Native American ancestry was substantially less than she claimed.

Elon Musk then went on to call Elizabeth Warren Senator Karen and stated she yells for no reason.

Elon tweeted at her again reminding her that his tax bill is going to be significant this year and took a shot at her for her role in the budget deficit.

Elizabeth Warren responded by drumming up ads on social media to solicit campaign contributions for her distant 2024 re-election campaign, acting as if she were running against Elon Musk himself. The website in the link is an Act Blue link for her campaign.

Unsurprisingly, the ads targeted California residents much more than they targeted Massachusetts residents, and the leading target demographic of her ads is women over the age of 65.

Upon learning of the ads, Elon Musk asked if Elizabeth Warren was really someone that we wanted as a Senator, and stated that the people of Massachusetts deserve better.

Yet, Musk appears to be spearheading ideals that progressives favor, like atmosphere decarbonization. It seems odd that they aren’t willing to recognize him for privately and willingly carrying out the work that they’re demanding be done by government force.

But of course, the memes have been fantastic.

The post Cowboys vs Indians: The Feud Between Musk and Warren appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Musk went on to mock those in attendance by stating any Chief position, like CEO or CFO is a made up position. He stated that the only positions that matter when filing for a corporation are the titles of President, Secretary and Treasurer.

Elon also stated in the interview that the Federal Budget Deficit is “insane” and called for President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan to be “deleted.”

But the real highlight came when Elon stated that the government allocates capital very poorly, and capital allocation should be done by private people who can do it properly. He then described the government as a corporation with a monopoly on violence, a phrase that is popular with libertarian thinkers.

While in past years Elon Musk has described himself on Twitter as having socialist tendencies, it appears he’s had a degree of reconsideration. Especially considering socialism is heavily reliant on this monopoly of violence.

This shift in thinking was very noticeable during an exchange Elon Musk had on Twitter with David Beasely, the Executive Director of the UN’s World Food Programme. 

After claims that $6 billion of Elon’s money would solve world hunger were made by CNN, Researcher David Eli inquired why the UN couldn’t solve world hunger last year when it had amassed more than $6 billion. Elon replied that if the UN could prove how $6 billion could solve world hunger, and be transparent about how funds were used, that he would immediately sell $6 billion worth of stock and donate it.

David Beasely with the World Food Programme chimed in stating that CNN’s claim was not accurate (no surprise there), but essentially stated “it’s a start” while seemingly not accepting Elon’s condition of transparency and accountability.

Elon then replied “What happened here?” and linked an article about UN Peacekeepers forcing children in impoverished countries to perform sex acts on them for food.

Apparently government programs are only not very good at resource allocation, but they’re also incredibly sinister about it.

Watch the entire interview with Wall Street Journal below.

The post Elon Musk: “Government Is A Corporation With A Monopoly On Violence” appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Since individual users did not have their own wallets however, sending and receiving cryptocurrency was not an option for Robinhood users. The wallet feature on Robinhood has been long sought and speculated upon.

Robinhood is expected to roll out wallets to select users this October, and has promised wallets to all users by the beginning of next year. Robinhood’s price per share jumped 10% on this news.

Robinhood was a popular platform during the rise of Dogecoin as it attracted many first time cryptocurrency buyers. Unfortunately Doge was not an easy coin to obtain for people who were new to Cryptocurrency. Most platforms that offered Dogecoin didn’t have a direct medium of exchanging dollars for cryptocurrency (this exchange had to be done elsewhere for Bitcoin, and sent to a different platform where you could trade Bitcoin for Dogecoin). 

While larger platforms like Coinbase now offer Dogecoin, at the height of the meme buying craze, the easiest place for new users to buy was on Robinhood. Despite Robinhood not having individual wallets, a large number of people still bought on Robinhood for the ease of purchase and the well above average quality real time price charts.

However, this created a concentration problem for Dogecoin, where a large amount of the currency was concentrated in just a few wallets. This problem was called out by the Doge Father himself, Elon Musk.

One of the largest offenders by far was Robinhood. Even though the Dogecoin supply on Robinhood belonged to a large number of users, being stored in a single central wallet played a large role in the concentration problem. Users finally having their own individual wallets will clear a large part of this concentration problem up in short order.

Robinhood is also expected to have upcoming promotional offers in the works to celebrate the launch of wallets. Traditional Robinhood promotions include zero-fee cryptocurrency trading, free shares of stock, as well as slices of a cryptocurrency pool. You can join Robinhood at this link.

Disclosure: The Robinhood link provided in the article is a referral link that potentially rewards the author at no expense to the reader. If you enjoy my work, please consider using the referral link. If not, you can download the app directly from the Google Play or Apple stores.

The post Robinhood Finally Bringing Crypto Wallets, Solving Doge Problem appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“Energy usage trend over past few months is insane,” said Musk, one of bitcoin’s highest-profile supporters, in a May 12 tweet.

Tesla & Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/YSswJmVZhP

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2021

Musk’s about-face prompted criticism from the crypto community, with some stating that SpaceX would need to switch from rocket fuel to a “more sustainable energy” if Musk wished to not “look like a clueless big hypocrite.”

In the wake of Musk’s tweet, bitcoin underwent a selloff that saw prices plunge from $55,000 to $49,500 in about two hours—a slide that has continued since.

Is Bitcoin Bad for the Environment?

Musk isn’t the only person worried about the amount of energy bitcoin uses. During a February interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen offered a similar sentiment.

“It’s an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering,” Yellen said.

Yellen sounds warning about ‘extremely inefficient’ bitcoin https://t.co/BB6dyXm6zZ

— CNBC (@CNBC) February 22, 2021

Microsoft founder Bill Gates offered a similar take.

“Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind,” the billionaire told Sorkin in a ClubHouse session.

Carol Alexander, a professor at the University of Sussex Business School, agreed. In a recent CNBC interview, Alexander said that crypto’s mining “difficulty” — a computational metric used to measure how much effort it takes to mine bitcoin — has been surging the last three years.

“More and more electricity is being used,” Alexander told CNBC. “That means that the network difficulty will also be going up (and) more miners are coming in because the hash rate’s going up.”

What the Numbers Say

There’s no question that bitcoin uses a lot of energy. Its defenders point out this is what makes the cryptocurrency so secure. But a recent study points out that bitcoin’s energy usage stacks up well to its competition—and then some.

In May, Galaxy Digital, a cryptocurrency firm founded by venture capitalist Michael Novogratz, released a paper that compared bitcoin’s energy usage to the industries that are considered its primary competitors—the traditional banking system (for savings and payments) and gold (as a value store).

Researchers at the mining arm of Galaxy Digital estimated Bitcoin’s annual electricity consumption to be roughly 113.89 terawatts per hour (TWh/yr), a figure that includes everything from miner power consumption, pool power consumption, energy for miner demand, and node power consumption.

That’s a lot of energy, to be sure. But the authors point out there’s an important distinction many are missing.

“Given Bitcoin’s transparency, it is easy to estimate Bitcoin’s energy usage,” the study’s authors point out. “This results in frequent criticism of Bitcoin, but these critiques are rarely levied against other traditional industries. “

One of the reasons you hear much less about the energy consumption of the banking and gold sectors is that, unlike bitcoin, these industries do not disclose their energy footprints to the public, the researchers pointed out.

“If we want to have an honest conversation about Bitcoin’s energy use, it seems appropriate to consider it in light of the industries it is most often compared to,” the researchers said.

Indeed. And it turns out that bitcoin stacks up favorably to the gold and traditional banking sectors. Analyzing the four key areas of electricity consumption in banks—data centers, branches, ATMs, and card networks—the study estimates that the worldwide electricity consumption of the banking system is 263.72 TWh/yr.

Gold was slightly lower than banks, with an estimated 240.61 TWh/yr, but still roughly twice that of bitcoin. (You can learn more about the researchers’ methodology in the report.)

“These estimates may exclude key sources of energy use and emissions that are second order effects of the gold industry like the energy and carbon intensity of the tires used in gold mines,” Galaxy researchers noted.

A new paper says #Bitcoin actually uses way less energy than the traditional banking system. And it’s not that close. pic.twitter.com/flystaP6SG

— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) May 25, 2021

One could reasonably ask, of course, if this favorable comparison would continue if bitcoin were to become adopted as widely as fiat moneys currently are. The answer appears to be yes for a couple of reasons.

First, the vast majority of electricity bitcoin uses is consumed in the mining process, so more exchanges of bitcoin will not result in a surge of electricity consumption.

Second, mining reward mechanisms and energy consumption are evolving. Bitcoin mining is complicated stuff, but one thing we know is that only 21 million bitcoins will be produced. Ever. About 18.7 million of these bitcoin have already been mined. Well before the last bitcoin is mined in 2140, however, the mining process is expected to shift. Crypto analysts say the process will likely be more efficient and less exhaustive as rewards for mining decrease and transaction fees play a larger role.

“That could eventually include a switch to a more environmentally-friendly consensus mechanism like proof of stake or another successor to proof of work,” Luka Boškin, CMO of crypto trading platform NewsCrypto, told Decrypt.

Moreover, engineers say the high electricity use becomes less of a concern as more and more mining is done in places where electricity is cheap and clean.

“Not all types of energy generation are equal in their impact on the environment,” wrote Katrina Kelly-Pitou, an energy systems strategist and University of Pittsburgh researcher, in a 2018 article for The Conversation; “nor does the world uniformly rely on the same types of generation across states and markets.”

She continued:

“In Europe, for example, Iceland is becoming a popular place for bitcoin mining. That nation relies on nearly 100 percent renewable energy for its production. An abundant supply of geothermal and hydropower energy makes bitcoiners’ power demand cheap and nearly irrelevant. Similarly, in the hydropower-driven Pacific Northwest, miners can still expect to turn a profit without contributing heavily to carbon emissions.”

Dreaming of ‘Good Money’

In his celebrated work Denationalisation of Money, F.A. Hayek argues that one of the most important lessons of human history is that governments inveterately debase currencies.

From Ancient Rome to the great powers of the twentieth century, Hayek saw that governments simply could not help themselves from manipulating currencies in ways that erode their value.

“[S]ince the function of government in issuing money is no longer one of merely certifying the weight and fineness of a certain piece of metal, but involves a deliberate determination of the quantity of money to be issued, governments have become wholly inadequate for the task and, it can be said without qualifications, have incessantly and everywhere abused their trust to defraud the people,” Hayek wrote.

The great economist dreamed of a day when governments no longer monopolized currencies.

“I don’t believe we shall ever have good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government,” the Nobel Laureate observed in a 1984 interview with James U. Blanchard III. “Because we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly, roundabout way, introduce something they can’t stop.”

As fate would have it, we’ve found a way to do precisely what Hayek dreamed. There’s no question that bitcoin uses a lot of energy, though not nearly as much as its competitors.

But life, as any economist knows, is all about tradeoffs. The question is: do the benefits of bitcoin outweigh its costs?

If it can solve the problem of government monetary debasement, that answer is indeed a definitive yes. Herr Hayek would no doubt agree.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post Bitcoin Uses Half the Energy of the Banking System appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

On Wednesday, the company’s Starship test model SN10 made a high altitude test flight to 10 kilometers and landed back on the launch pad. The previous two attempts with SN8 and SN9 reached their test altitude but suffered RUDs (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, or in simpler terms, exploding) at the point of landing.

SpaceX attempted SN10’s high altitude test in the mid afternoon, but was automatically aborted by the system at T-0 due to a detected anomaly.

The second attempt successfully launched, with Starship reaching the 10 kilometer test altitude, freefalling back to earth horizontally, and thrust pivoting back to the vertical position to land. 

You can watch the full launch event here:

Starship SN10 did, however, experience an RUD a few minutes after landing, from what some are speculating to be a methane leak. However this is only a minor problem at this development stage, and landing the Starship without an RUD at the landing stage itself is a gigantic step forward. 

Watch SN10’s RUD below:

This successful test of the SN10 stage comes the day after Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, who previously purchased a civilian space flight, announced a chance for you to join him on what he calls the Dear Moon Project. The flight will go around the moon and come back to earth. Musk states that this flight will actually go a little bit past the moon in order to be the furthest humans have ever been in space.

In a joint video released with Elon Musk, Yusaku Maezawa details his vision to bring 8 people who consider themselves to be creative or artistic along with him for the ride on Starship in 2023. 

If you describe yourself as creative or artistic, as Maezawa details in the video that anyone can be, you can enter for your chance at one of the seats at DearMoon.earth. 

Judging from his Twitter handle of @yousuckMZ, yes, he’s very aware of what his first name phonetically sounds like in English.

The successful landing of Starship the day after this announcement should hopefully give people confidence that SpaceX is on track for Starship to carry people in 2 years. Under development by SpaceX, it is intended to take humans to Mars and will be the world’s first fully reusable spacecraft.

The post SpaceX Lands Starship, Offers Free Trip Around the Moon appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

UPDATE: THE TRADING APP ROBINHOOD PREVIOUSLY RESISTED PUTTING LIMITATIONS ON STOCKS. HOWEVER ROBINHOOD REVERSED COURSE AND IS NOW LIMITING TRANSACTIONS OF CERTAIN STOCKS INVOLVED IN COORDINATED BUY EFFORTS.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on any social media platform in the last 2 days, you’ve likely seen a rising tide of posts laughing at short sellers and hedge fund managers.

Regular people like yourself have seemingly joined forces to decimate some of the least liked people in the financial industry, and make a quick buck themselves doing it.

Most people have been using the trading app Robinhood, which you can download here, and get a free share of stock from a random company, just for signing up.

So what’s all the rage about? In a nutshell, people are upset about short sellers who are making money off the collapse of companies that have been forced to close, largely by local governments, due to the pandemic.

Yes, you can make money off of stock going down. It’s a risky transaction that is executed by the vampires, vultures and leeches of the financial industry, the banking hive of scum and villainy. 

For our readers who are unfamiliar with short sell trading, we’ll begin with a normal buy transaction. If you buy a share of stock from a company, for say $20, the most you can possibly lose is the $20 you invested if the company were to go out of business. The upside however does not have a ceiling. That $20 can continue to go up and up forever if it is a good performing stock.

If you buy a stock for $20, it goes up to $30, and then down to $15, you did not lose $15. You ultimately lost $5 based on your initial investment.

A short sale is a polar reverse of a natural buy most people engage in. It relies on a stock to go down, rather than up.

With the short sale, you lock in the current value with a contract obligating you to pay a future price for it. You would only do this if you expect the price to go down, to pay a lower price for the current value. This is a way that short sellers and hedge fund managers profit off of a failing company.

This is a risky transaction to the mentioned potential unlimited upside to a natural buy if a stock does well. This means that if you short a stock, you had better be right; because the downside is unlimited. 

In the case of GameStop, short sellers were taking out contracts at $20 per share, committing themselves to paying a future price for that $20. They were likely expecting to pay pennies for that $20 based on their projected demise of Gamestop. The same momentum is now picking up with AMC Theaters.

In this case, the Reddit community and memers internet wide purchased the stock in massive waves on purpose, driving the price up to (at the time of this writing) to $292 per share. AMC Theaters is starting to pick up the same momentum, and increased from $4.70 per share to $14.61 share on Wednesday with people now seemingly looking to push that stock price way up.

In other words, at the time of this writing, those who are profiting from the government destroying industries are currently committed to paying $292 and receiving $20 for it. These short sellers tend to take out a lot of these contracts at a time, and within 48hrs the damage to them is in the billions. With the unlimited downside potential, these hedge fund managers have not just lost their investment, but have found themselves suddenly to be in a great deal of debt…. to the tune of billions collectively.

Those who have closely followed Tesla are familiar with the war against short sellers who continually bet on Tesla to fail. In the year 2020, Tesla short sellers lost more money than the entire airline industry did the year of the pandemic due to Tesla”s impressive growth.

Elon Musk released a limited edition offering of Tesla “short shorts” on Tesla’s website to mock the losses of Tesla short sellers. The shorts sold out almost instantly.

Elon Musk on Twitter promoted the legion of memers driving Gamestop’s stock price to hurt short sellers with his “Gamestonk” tweet where he linked the Reddit thread.

Stock Brokers like TD Ameritrade have attempted to squash the momentum by disabling trading of stocks like Gamestop and AMC. However Robinhood, the free trading app which has been favored by Millennials and Gen Z, has not made any move to disable trading. 

Folks on Twitter appear to be enjoying this new ride.

Disclosure: Referral link to Robinhood provided by the author

The post AMC, Gamestop Trolls Are Costing Wall Street Vampires Billions appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.