Where were you when you heard the news about GameStop?
When it showed up in your Twitter feed, you were probably shocked. Senator Cruz agreed with Representative Ocasio-Cortez, with both saying that what Robinhood did was unacceptable. Clearly, it must be really bad.
Then Senator Hawley joined the fray in an article over at First Things titled “Calling Wall Street’s Bluff.” The narrative quickly became that of a good, old-fashioned morality play, in which the “Elites” are attacked by a ragtag bunch of “Ordinary People” and the ordinary people win, raiding the castle and carrying off some ill-gotten loot. The Elites are unhappy. Fortunately, our elected representatives are here to stick up for the regular folks. Congress is scheduling hearings. Janet Yellen is launching her own investigation.
Truth be told, as the whole story was unfolding, I laughed. It was so fun and crazy—a real-life video game revolution. The names themselves are priceless: Reddit and Robinhood and WallStreetBets vs. Melvin Capital and Wall Street. Coming soon to Netflix. (That is not a joke: Netflix really is planning a show. So is MGM.)
Alas, sober reality is not nearly as exciting as all of the foregoing makes it sound. Not everything in life is a morality play. Sometimes it is just a bunch of technical details that really don’t lend themselves to a story with good guys and bad guys. Sometimes there are good guys and bad guys on both sides. So, before rushing off to change policy and enshrine the ordinary people as heroes for beating the dastardly elites, let’s pause and look at the details.
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