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Comment by fjabre | Hacker News Reader

I would hesitate from calling WallStreetBets or Reddit the 'little guy'. That's the part that gets me about this story. Both sides are immoral and wrong in manipulating the market and both sides have committed the crime of market manipulation.

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You are totally misinformed. To bet against people who took too much risk is exactly what the market should do. Not immoral and its not manipulation at all. The problem isn't the betting of either side the problem is that one side de-facto can not loose (the current situation is an exception and it needs to be seen how much they actually lost in the end). They either get bailouts or get almost "unlimited free" loans to keep going until the tides turn and profits cover previous loses. This is actually manipulation. No matter who bets and on what, a fair free market would liquidate the losers, end of the story. The problem is that the losers in this case aren't actually legally allowed to lose that money because they gamble with other peoples money. Nonetheless they should be liquidated and the rightful owner should sue them and what not but ultimately they have to take the lose. To give your money to someone so they make more is in itself a bet that comes with a risk. Just because someone lost your money in a possible illegal way doesn't mean you have the right to get it back. If I give you 100 bucks and you steal it instead of multiplying it you are a criminal but I still have to bear the lose. Hedge fund and other financial institutions should not be treated differently.

When we look back on past injustices, there is almost a feeling of ridicule. As if we can't imagine how can those people fall for someone who says he (almost always a he) is appointed by god and bear so much of his bullshit for that. It is not victim blaming, but just barely so. It's a massive surge of disbelief, and an accompanying faith that no, those days are over now. We are better than this now.

Only we aren't, and we are still soaking up massive shitloads of inqueqlity and blood-boiling rule-bending like the good folks we are. For reasons that are, for all practical purposes, exactly like "god says I can", only this god is called "the free market". Slightly less superstitious, but no less unreal or stupid as the old thing. It's amazing how much you can get depressed thinking about the sheer "same shit different day"-ness of human civilization.

I guess I don’t understand why manipulating the market is immoral if you’re open and honest about it the way wsb was.

I think both sides are doing the same thing and pointing fingers at each other. That's my point. Market manipulation is just that, whether it's done by a privileged class on their iPhone 11s (i.e. the Reddit mob) or Hedge fund managers.

A privileged mob on reddit armed with Macbook pros does not equal the people sticking it to the man.

Reddit itself is part of the oligarchy everyone is railing against.

I don’t think you answered my question. I don’t disagree it’s market manipulation, and I agree no one is “sticking it to the man” here (though I’m always happy to see hedge funds lose 20 billion).

What I’m asking is why market manipulation is a bad thing, as long as it’s happening out in the open and everyone trading GME knows it’s a manipulated stock.

The same way a coup can be immoral and wrong even if you lie upfront about it. It's abusive and destructive.

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