Tag Archive for stock market

StonkMarketStop

One of the more intriguing recent developments has been the whole GameStop story and how a bunch of neophyte traders on Reddit spanked the greedy hedge fund pirate plutocrats of Wall Street and beat them at their own game.

We won’t go into depth on explaining what happened. We’ll let this article explain the proceedings. Or you can let Tom Tomorrow at This Modern World explain it in cartoon format. But in a nutshell, a group of investors on Reddit, a group called WallStreetBets or WSB, decided they were going to teach the greedy hedge fund managers a lesson. One tactic hedge fund managers use is to short sell stocks. They look for stocks that are failing and basically bet that they’ll continue to die. So they borrow shares to sell and buy all the stock at a lower price before paying off their lender and usually make a fortune. GameStop is a brick-and-mortar video game retailer whose days are numbered because of online video gaming and the pandemic, so they were on the hedge funders lists of future profits. But WSB stepped in and bought stock so that the stock price rose precipitously, which means that the hedge fund managers, who were betting that the stock prices would fall, lost money, BIG TIME. We’re talking billions of dollars. The trend continued for other failing businesses like AMC, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Blockbuster, whose stock price rose 3,990% in a week.

If you say this sounds like rigging the system like that of a casino, you are absolutely right. The WSB people showed that the hedge fund managers have been using Wall Street as a casino for years to get filthy rich with absolutely no repercussions. Of course, now that WSB did the same thing, plutocrats are crying foul and proclaiming that there needs to be regulations in place. You see, only plutocrats are supposed to win money on the stock market, while the rest of us working stiffs just work our asses off making these avaricious assholes richer. So, the greedy corporatists are fine with no regulations until they’re beaten at their own game and then they cry like babies.

We’re looking forward to see what kind of regulations Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have in store for the greedy fat cat capitalists in the next couple years. It could get interesting, folks.

A well heeled member of the plutocracy expresses his utter disdain that common peons are making money at the Wall Street casino.
A well heeled member of the plutocracy expresses his utter disdain that common peons are making money at the Wall Street casino.

Gamble Away Your Money and Your Life

While several nations like Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic and Norway are kicking butt in the fight against coronavirus, the good ol’ U.S. continues to lead the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths; not something we should be proud of. But yet, despite severe spikes in many Sun Belt states, even here in Arizona, the economy continues to open up again with masks and social distancing being optional in most places. Like we pointed out several posts back, the American people must sacrifice themselves on the altar of capitalism to keep the economy and stock market going ever upward and appease our capitalist plutocrat overlords, a.k.a. the Gods of Greed.

There’s probably no better picture of the insanity of it all than the reopening of Sin City, Las Vegas. We’ve commented before back in April about Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman with her survival of the fittest scenario she laid out for casinos reopening. Well, apparently that strategy is coming to fruition as casinos have reopened with masks now optional for guests. Predictably, there’s been a bump in COVID-19 cases in the past couple of weeks. But who cares, right? Americans must have their casino fix come hell or the apocalypse. Now they can gamble away their money . . . and their lives. Who could ask for anything more!

Las Vegas has reopened its casinos beckoning tourists to come gamble away their money and their lives.
Las Vegas has reopened its casinos beckoning tourists to come gamble away their money and their lives.

The Tone-Deaf Dictator

The protests over police brutality are continuing throughout the United States and the world. Despite the repugnant circumstances surrounding George Floyd’s death, there are already indications that maybe, just maybe, justice might prevail this time for non-white people in this nation. All four police officers involved in Mr. Floyd’s death have been charged. The Minneapolis police force has fired it’s officers and will start rebuilding the force in an effort to reform its culture. On television, the show Cops, which has glorified police chases and aggressive tactics for years, has finally been cancelled. There are also many other race-related events that have happened in the past week from Confederate statues being torn down to companies changing racist corporate cultures, that signal a positive change to our society. The topic of police reform is being brought to the nation’s forefront as people from all corners of the nation and the world are stepping forward and saying there is a deep rooted problem that needs to be fixed. Meaningful reform is needed on a federal, state and local level.

But in true Trumpian fashion, America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator, master at race relations, and most empathetic human being alive, Donald Trump, turned the police brutality protests into a praise fest of . . . surprise, surprise . . . Donald Trump. If you’re shocked by this, then you haven’t been conscious in the last three years . . . or decades for that matter. Last week, he actually held a press conference and bragged about the latest unemployment figures, calling them ‘the greatest thing that could happen for race relations”. He then crowed that George Floyd would have approved of the stats, speaking as if he and Mr. Floyd had beers all the time pool side at Mar-a-Lago talking about the economy. Really???!!!! How friggin’ tone-deaf can you get! Once again, our egotistical megalomaniac-in-chief has interjected himself as the one who will cure our deep rooted societal racism with a good unemployment report and that the recently brutally murdered Floyd would approve and maybe, in a warped way, even endorse Trump for re-election. Delusion rules in Trumpland!

But the good report wasn’t all that good. According to reports, there’s a glaring error and the unemployment numbers may be as high as 20%. Wait. . . you mean Trump lied? Of course, he did! The Labor Department has fudged the numbers the last couple months so that unemployed people were actually classified as employed. This fits in perfectly with the authoritarian nature of the fascist Trump regime: all reports must reflect well on our dear Leader or be stifled. Last week, Trump even cried about a CNN poll that showed him losing badly to Biden. November can’t come soon enough so we can vote Trump and his sycophantic flying monkeys out of office! Then, maybe the healing can begin.

America's Impeached CEO/Dictator and stable genius at race relations, Donald Trump, proclaims that his good friend George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by racist cops, would be thrilled the recent unemployment reports.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and stable genius at race relations, Donald Trump, proclaims that his good friend George Floyd, who was brutally murdered by racist cops, would be thrilled the recent unemployment reports.

Rand’s Gospel O’ Greed

The coronavirus pandemic rages on with over 1.4 million cases in the U.S. and over 88 thousand deaths (that’s almost 30 9/11s folks). And yet, many states, like Wisconsin, have decided that it doesn’t matter that the curve hasn’t flattened yet in the U.S., the economy must be restarted, damn the consequences. The gods of greed on Wall Street must be sated and stock prices must climb no matter how many people become sick and die. Money, money, money! Greed, greed, greed!

We’ve commented many times about the hypocrisy of right-wing, conservative, christian Republicans who proclaim their love of Jesus but in the same breath advocate the ramblings of Ayn Rand, who taught the gospel of greed: greed is a good thing; who cares about community; promote yourself constantly, to hell with all others; I got mine, screw you. We’ve got evangelical hucksters preaching the prosperity gospel. Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, professed to be a catholic but at the same time admired Rand. But Rand’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Jesus’ teachings as this linked article points out. Rand promoted being selfish where Jesus said that being selfless and caring about your fellow man is the way to live your life.

Now we’re atheists here at the Bucket, so at first glance one might think we’d be in Rand’s corner, since she was atheist, too. But we’re also non-materialistic environmentalists. We need to live in harmony with our environment. We advocate the ‘simplify, simplify’ mantra of Henry David Thoreau. We also live our lives according to the golden rule, which is completely in line with the teachings of Jesus. We’re absolutely anti-greed and anti-corporation and call out the conservative christian Republican hypocrites who see no problem promoting both Rand and Jesus.

The grand problem for today’s christians is that they’ve been brainwashed by our capitalistic overlords that socialism is a bad thing when in actuality, Jesus’ teachings were socialistic. Unfortunately, our brand of capitalism has taken root throughout the civilized world and it’s taken the coronavirus pandemic to show how utterly cruel, empty, unethical, immoral, corrupt, depraved, inhumane and unchristian modern day capitalism is. Greed is not good! If humans have to sacrifice themselves at the altar of capitalism so the economy can function, then maybe we should look to another economic system like socialism to keep our civilization sane, wise and healthy.

Modern conservative christian Republicans seem to have no problem with the hypocrisy of worshipping both Jesus, who preached selflessness, and Ayn Rand, who advocated selfishness and greed.
Modern conservative christian Republicans seem to have no problem with the hypocrisy of worshipping both Jesus, who preached selflessness, and Ayn Rand, who advocated selfishness and greed.

Trump Supporters: Bat Shit Insane

In our previous post we commented about America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and ‘stable genius’ Donald Trump and his mind boggling, head spinning pivots on authority for opening up the coronavirus during the COVID-19 pandemic. One day he says he has authority, the next day he says the governors have authority and then the day after that he encourages civil war by urging his brain dead troglodyte followers to LIBERATE their respective states.

Yes, lets talk briefly about these bat shit insane boneheads who don’t like being told to follow safety precautions to save their own lives. It’s basically the stupid Teabagger movement redux. The corporate media is doing the same thing they did ten years ago – a small group of idiots, armed to the teeth, band together and protest common sense and the corporate media foams at the mouth and gives them top story coverage. That’s because there are some insidious right wing conservative groups behind the lock down protests with solid connections to the anything-for-profit media. In contrast, tens of thousands of people have peacefully and non-violently protested the vile, oppressive policies of the Trump administration and the Republicans and the corporate media gives them barely a passing mention. Un-f*cking-believable!

But the stupidity of these MÆGAMorons is off the charts on the bat shit insanity meter. These shutdown orders are to save your lives not to inconvenience you. What’s next? These idiots will protest taking shelter during a tornado warning because it violates their constitutional freedom. There were even signs among the protesters that proclaimed “My body, my choice.” But yet these same assholes are perfectly fine with the government telling a woman what to do with her uterus. What colossal dumbass hypocrites! These people are actually choosing to be exposed to a debilitating disease which may kill them or kill their loved ones; all in order to maybe bump the stock market up a few points and keep our plutocratic overlords wealthy. Un-f*cking-believable!

But then Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman topped all the stupid meters by suggesting a Hunger Games type scenario where all the casinos open up and the ones who have the least amount of COVID-19 cases, win. Ahhh! The wonderful, magical free market! We’re getting tired of saying un-f*cking-believable so we’ll just say this: when it comes to the bat shit insane MÆGAMorons versus the coronavirus – we’re rooting for the virus. Natural selection, take them away!

A bat shit insane Trump supporter or MÆGAMorons proudly defies orders to take shelter from a killer tornado to preserve his constitutional freedom.
Trump supporters or MÆGAMorons have made it clear that they will not tolerate any ‘guvment’ orders which may violate their constitutional freedom even if it’s to save their moronic, bat shit insane lives.

Trump: Bat Shit Insane

Another day, another bat shit insane action by America’s CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump and his army of mindless sycophants. This time, Trump performed head revolutions worthy of the demon from The Exorcist. At the beginning of last week, Trump proclaimed that the ultimate authority laid with him in the reopening of America’s businesses, in shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic currently ravaging the world’s human population. This predictably produced much backlash from people who like the Constitution, law and order, democracy, science, logic and reason. Like Dr. Fauci had said previously, Trump just can’t tell the virus when it has to stop; we don’t set the timetable. So, on this past Thursday Trumpty Dumpty made an announcement stating the ultimate authority on reopening the economy should lie with the governor of each individual state.

You would think that Trump thumpers, being states rights advocates and all that, would have rejoiced. But nooooooooo! Reminiscent of the teabagger movement from ten years ago, armed idiots took to the streets on Friday in states such as Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky proclaiming loudly to all that they will not follow shutdown orders; that it violates their constitutional rights. To make matters ridiculous, our megalomaniac dear Leader tweeted for these ‘very responsible people’ to LIBERATE their respective states, effectively nullifying his statement of the previous day. These aren’t the actions of a level headed, clear minded, logical leader. These are the actions of a bat shit insane, narcissistic asshole who has no regard for human life.

There has been more than 40,000 lives lost in the last two months due to COVID-19. Our leaders should be taking this seriously. The goal should be reopening the country when we have proper testing available so more people won’t fall victim to the virus. But what does Florida governor Rick DeSantis do? He reopens beaches around Jacksonville while Florida is still getting slammed by the virus. The conservative Republicans values have been exposed for all to see and. . . surprise, surprise. . . the only thing they care about is money, wealth and power.

America's Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump demonstrates the bat shit insanity that has endeared him to his equally bat shit insane followers.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump demonstrates the bat shit insanity that has endeared him to his equally bat shit insane followers.

The Gods of Greed

The coronavirus pandemic is still wreaking havoc on the human population across the planet with the death rate at close to 6% globally. The United States now leads the world in coronavirus cases by a large margin with over 500,000 cases and in deaths with over 21,000. Not only has COVID-19 exposed the incompetence of the Trump administration, but it’s revealed the true abhorrent nature of right wing propaganda media outlets like Fox News, a.k.a. the Republican Propaganda Network, and has destroyed the myth of a strong economy that American CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump has touted since day one of his clusterf*ck of a presidency.

Trump has taken over the media since the coronavirus outbreak and on a daily basis shown that he is a truly horrible, tone deaf, uncaring heel. He openly has pushed for the use of hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure for COVID-19 despite medical evidence to the contrary. He has openly tried to gaslight the public in saying that he was always concerned about the coronavirus pandemic when he clearly mocked the media for touting its danger back in January and February, calling it ‘the next democratic hoax’ and stating that the virus will go away by April. (Editor’s note – we were skeptical back then, too – but at least we’ll admit we underestimated the original situation). In typical Trumpian fashion, he has blamed everyone but himself. His daily briefings are nothing more than political rallies where he crows about what a fantastic job he’s doing and that his ratings are higher than ever. He even brought out the My Pillow guy to prop him up. In Trump’s warped mind, over 21,000 (that’s seven 9/11s, folks) deaths in a two month span is a good thing and apparently we should congratulate him. Remember when he tweeted in 2014 calling for Obama to resign because of his handling of Ebola which resulted in two American deaths. No hypocrisy there, eh?

Fox News has also been doing its part in the gaslighting of America, too. When the pandemic first broke back in February, they openly called it a hoax and nothing to worry about. Twenty-one thousand American deaths later, they’re walking back their comments like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. Trump bootlicker extraordinaire Sean Hannity even had the gaul to say that Fox has always been concerned about the coronavirus, conveniently forgetting that there are video records showing the contrary. Fortunately, they’re getting sued for spreading lies and misinformation to the American public about coronavirus. Will justice be served and Fox be driven into the ground? We can only hope, but like John Oliver recently revealed on his excellent show, there are more bat shit insane right wing networks like OAN waiting in the wings to take Fox’s place.

The true emptiness of our capitalistic society has also been exposed with this pandemic. People have been trying to make boatloads of money off the shortages of paper products from the panic buying last month in the very definition of disaster capitalism. The stock market has lost much of its gains of the Trump era despite billionaires pumping money into the voracious, insatiable maw of Wall Street. Pundits like tin foil hat king Glenn Beck have even put forth notions that people should sacrifice themselves in order to save the stock market. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has even suggested that people are going to die anyway, why not sacrifice yourself for the stockholders of America. And somehow, disgraced former Fox News propagandist and self-proclaimed history detective Bill O’Reilly has appeared back on the air and has been blathering the same kind of thing as Johnson saying that the deaths have been people who ‘were on their last legs anyway’. What a compassionate conservative christian!

That’s where we are, folks; our leaders and right wing media pundits are actually suggesting we lay down our lives for profit. For those christians out there, is this what Jesus would do? With the coronavirus pandemic, we now know that to the Republican party, certain people in America (a.k.a. the non 1%ers) just don’t matter and they should sacrifice themselves on the altar of capitalism in order to appease the Gods of Greed; the capitalistic overlords on Wall Street and plutocrats of corporate America.

The Gods of Greed: In order to save his precious stock market while simultaneously improving his all-important TV ratings, American CEO/Dictator and top notch medical professional Donald Trump and his horde of sycophantic Republican lackeys try to convince the American populace that granny and gramps must sacrifice themselves to the coronavirus pandemic on the altar of capitalism in order to save the lives of our greedy corporate overlords and the avaricious plutocratic gods on Wall Street. Rated R for Rapacious.
The Gods of Greed: In order to save his precious stock market while simultaneously improving his all-important TV ratings, American CEO/Dictator and top notch medical professional Donald Trump and his horde of sycophantic Republican lackeys try to convince the American populace that granny and gramps must sacrifice themselves to the coronavirus pandemic on the altar of capitalism in order to save the lives of our greedy corporate overlords and the avaricious plutocratic gods on Wall Street. Rated R for Rapacious.

The Virus Whisperer

America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump ratcheted up his audacity to yet another level of absurdity this past week. Upset that his precious stock market gains were being erased by the coronavirus, our grown-up Bart Simpson President proclaimed that things will officially be back to normal by Easter, which caused countless simultaneous facepalms by health professionals throughout the world. This shouldn’t be surprising since Trump was pretty pissed off that Hurricane Dorian changed course last year and made dear Leader look bad.

Trump’s colossal ego and narcissism is not only boundless but dangerous. His delusion that he’s somehow on equal footing as scientists and doctors produced a drastic result this past week as an Arizona man died taking chloroquine phosphate, a derivative of an anti-malaria drug cholorquine that Trump touted as being a possible cure for coronavirus, which again prompted a multitude of facepalms from science professionals. You can’t just tell a virus what to do no more than you can tell a hurricane what to do, but don’t tell that to ‘master scientist’ Trump. Apparently, he thinks he’s some kind of virus whisperer. Fortunately, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one the country’s leading disease experts and a member of Trump’s coronavirus team, stepped up and said that the virus makes the timeline not humans. We’re predicting that with that kind of attitude toward facts, truth and honesty, Dr. Fauci may not be on Trump’s team much longer.

Trump’s choice of Easter is also very telling of another group in his base that he’s trying to appease; the evangelical christians. Remember: he’s got holier-than-thou rapture freaks Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr in his administration. What better symbolism could you ask for than having America reborn from a horrible scourge on Easter, the day Jesus ‘resurrected from the dead’. Trump says he even wants to pack the churches with the faithful to celebrate. As we mentioned in our last post, we have no doubt Trump will politicize the coronavirus for the upcoming election. If everything appears to be fine by Easter then he will proclaim it to be an ‘Easter miracle’ and he will appear even more like ‘the chosen one’ to his brain dead zombie followers.

Actually, we have no problem with Trumpty Dumpty’s plan of packing the churches on Easter. Just ignore stories of pastors who thought coronavirus was a hoax and died or an entire congregation who met at a church event resulting in three dozens infections. It’s just fake news. Trump knows best. If Trump’s MAGA supporters want to defy doctors and scientists and gather together and spread the COVID-19 to other sheeple in the flock, then we here at the Bucket say go right ahead. Let Jesus take the wheel. When you get sick, just don’t go to the ‘evil’ scientists or doctors for help; just hunker down and pray to God or Donald Trump to be magically cured. Yeah . . . that will work well.

America's Impeached CEO/Dictator, stable genius, bestest scientist ever, virus whisperer and the self proclaimed ‘chosen one’, Donald Trump, gets tough with coronavirus, not because it's killing and endangering innocent people, but because it's lowering his precious stock market gains.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator, stable genius, bestest scientist ever, virus whisperer and the self proclaimed ‘chosen one’, Donald Trump, gets tough with coronavirus, not because it’s killing and endangering innocent people, but because it’s lowering his precious stock market gains.

Coronavirusing The Election

The coronavirus pandemic has brought out the strangeness of humanity. On one hand you have the Italian people singing from balconies in a touching effort to stay connected with each other. On the other hand, for some strange reason, people are hoarding toilet paper and acting like this is the apocalypse, which has now caused problems with the sewers in California with people using alternatives. The stock market has lost just about all its gains from the Trump era. Not only that, Republicans are somehow embracing socialism, proposing sending every American one thousand dollars to deal with the crisis.

While Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on the world, Vladimir Putin has pulled strings in Russia so that he will remain President until 2036. Hell, let’s just call this what it is: President-for-life(a.k.a.dictator) . . . and quite possibly even after his death (we’re sure he’ll find a way). This is hardly the actions of a healthy democracy now is it. Speaking of healthy, Russia seems to avoiding coronavirus surprisingly well. Hmmmmmm….

Yet we have no doubt that America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump is green with envy about his man crush Putin. Trumpty Dumpty has hinted on more than one occasion about how being ‘president for life’ would be a wonderful thing for America. The Republicans have been working feverishly to enact voter suppression laws across America. Last week we saw that fear of coronavirus kept some people away from primaries and many states are even postponing their presidential primary elections. Reports have indicated that Covid-19 may come in waves so that we will have to be on guard until next year. Could it be that Trump, in an effort to keep power, cancels the 2020 election due to a serious coronavirus wave outbreak? If it sounds evil and vile, then you can bet Republicans are probably going to do it. The Republican-led Senate just gave Trump a free pass on impeachment despite him being guilty as hell, thus suspending rule of law, checks and balances and democracy. So, Trump can do whatever he wants. Republicans under Bush tried to create a perpetual war with its war on terrorism after 9/11. Now with many waves of coronavirus possible and the American public panicking like never before, Republicans will absolutely politicize the hell of it because if there’s one thing the GOP knows how to do, it’s fearmonger.

Keep the sheeple scared and keep ’em away from the polls! Yep, Trump’s definitely angling to join the President for Life club with his pal Vlad and his Republican sycophants are no doubt going to do their damnedest to try and make it happen.

Upon seeing how scared the American sheeple have become due to the coronavirus, America's Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump reveals that he'll just cancel the 2020 election so that he will be President for life and beyond, just like his hero and man crush Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Upon seeing how scared the American sheeple have become due to the coronavirus, America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump reveals a plan that will enable him to be President for life and beyond, just like his hero and man crush Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Our Simpson-esque Man Child Dictator

We received this week for the umpty-ninth time of the Trump administration a glaring colossal reason why America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator Donald Trump should not be re-elected. In a televised speech to the nation, Trumpty Dumpty in typical Trumpian fashion failed to admit any fault in his response to the coronavirus and instead of calming the nerves of people worldwide, prompted more panic as stock markets again plunged Thursday morning. That’s almost an 8,000 point drop since mid February, folks; basically erasing any stock market gains since 2017. And remember: the ‘strength’ of the stock market was supposedly Trump’s mightiest accomplishment. Ooops!

A hallmark of the Trump presidency is that he constantly boasts how everybody loves him, what a stable genius he is and that ‘some people’ proclaim that he’s the greatest president in history. This monstrous narcissism was on display last week at a press conference at the CDC where our orange-haired megalomaniac blathered on about how a relative of his was a ‘super-genius’ and how scientists were coming up and telling him how smart he was and that he’s got ‘a natural ability’. Scientist, doctors and engineers around the world collectively vomited at this point. Trump’s vanity and ego truly know no bounds!

We’ve noted Trump’s resemblance to perpetual cartoon brat back in 2016 when we did a photo-toon explaining the 2016 election, Simpsons style with Hillary Clinton as Lisa and Trump as Bart. Trump’s constant boasting over the last three years reminds us of a classic episode of the Simpsons in Season 4 (Lisa’s First Word) when a little two year old Bart paraded around the house banging a pot proclaiming to all within earshot “I am so great! I am so great! Everybody loves me! I am so great!” Or here’s a hilarious 10 minute loop of Bart’s proclamation. (We’ve also embedded the vids below.) Gee, sound familiar? Yes, our Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child Donald Trump certainly does bear a striking resemblance to rotten little imp Bart Simpson. Cowabunga, dude!

America's Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child, Donald Trump, bears a striking resemblance to rotten, little imp Bart Simpson from the Simpsons and has even adopted walking around proclaiming loudly to all how great he is.
America’s Impeached CEO/Dictator and petulant man child, Donald Trump, bears a striking resemblance to rotten, little imp Bart Simpson from the Simpsons and has even adopted walking around proclaiming loudly to all how great he is.
Donald Trump proclaiming his greatness to all.
Donald Trump perpetually proclaiming his greatness.