I paper handed last Thursday morning, February 4th (sold my $GME position for a sizable loss), after having a panic attack the night before while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Also, that was on my 36th birthday. I felt lost, alone, and like no one cares about me. I used to thrive off my anonymity but lately I have been feeling invisible in a very bad way (it’s probably largely due to feeling like I don’t have any control).
When I woke up on Wednesday morning (birthday morning), I was already very anxious about the state of play for GME, the volatility surrounding it, market manipulation, hedge funds cheating (because that’s what they do), but I also felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself. I felt like I was finally getting a chance to fight back against a system and opponent that has screwed over so many people for such a long time. The little guy was finally going to put one over on the big schoolyard bully and maybe change things a little bit for the better.
I had been loosely following this specific stock and theory because I’ve been a WallStreetBets lurker for a few years. When I saw how quickly things started moving at the middle of the week and the fervor surrounding it I jumped in with an initial investment and then jumped in with a much larger one (which was quite dumb in hindsight; don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose). I’m going to attempt to dissect and understand why I did what I did despite knowing it was stupid and risky.
I was confident in the $GME play. I looked over various articles, posts, and discussion forums about their theory on why this squeeze would happen and it made sense. How can a company short more than one hundred percent of available stock shares and cover their position if a significant percentage of the stock is owned by retail traders?
The only way they could is by cheating or doing something illegal.
I bought in, and it first it was great and exciting. My portfolio shot up the next day in a big way. At one point told myself I should sell and be happy with the bump in my portfolio.
But I wanted more (and these are the three big reasons why):
- I wanted to help stick it to some hedge funds. I graduated college at the end of April in 2007. I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to live yet (leaning towards California but also considering Chicago like most people my age who grew up in West Michigan) and the post-college job market was rapidly shifting. They didn’t face any consequences for the 2008 market crash, and like a significant portion of the American citizenry I was (and still am) very pissed about that specific fact
- I wanted to increase my own personal wealth more like most people want to
- Primarily, I was bullish for the money because I wanted to use it for business ventures and funding projects I believed in
I have been unemployed since December 2019. I was working for a startup that closed right before the holidays. We received decent severance packages and so I was not in a rush to get back into the workforce once 2020 started. Then Covid hit and the world changed.
I knew this would affect my ability to get a job in the near-term but I wasn’t sweating that because I already had my unemployment set up and have been pretty good with saving money over the years. I knew I could get by for a little while with what I had saved and the unemployment pay.
Living in Los Angeles while navigating Covid has been an interesting experience for multiple reasons but one of the things I realized about myself is how much I yearn for open space. I began to think more and more about different housing options and ways to change the way we utilize the land we live on and what our priorities and connection to that land are. I’ve been working on different ideas surrounding regenerative farming practices and tiny home communities.
I’ve been creating decks, talking to advisors, putting together rough budget estimates, and was going to use that money towards realizing my vision. I wanted to create a new, sustainable way of living where people would be able to have better access to fresh food and also have more outdoor space to reconnect with nature. If you live in places like Southern California where the weather is pretty great year-round you don’t need as much indoor space but having ample outdoor space is great (especially in a pandemic) and I wanted to better pair those things.
My idea isn’t radical: take existing plots of lands and build sustainable/energy efficient tiny houses with community vegetable gardens in more rural areas (I also have ideas for how to incorporate dog rescues into these types of communities). This helps reduce costs for everyone and solves a number of problems as well.
I’m still working on my ideas and creating pitches for them but it feels a lot further away now. I wanted to incubate some cool ideas, even if they were small scale. I want to help encourage inventors and entrepreneurs to come up with new sustainable products that will make our lives and relationship with the Earth more symbiotic and less like that of a virus.
We have billions upon billions of dollars just sitting in people’s bank accounts and hedge funds that could be better utilized to improve our environment, improve our communities, and provide great job opportunities for people. And ultimately, the money would work it’s way back to the super rich eventually but in the process of doing so exchange a lot of different hands and be utilized to pay for many different services along the way.
For the businesses that I want to build I do want them to be profitable (in fact I need them to be in order for the whole damn thing to work). And then I will use those profits to start more businesses, or hire more people, or put the money into a non-profit. I’m not trying to start a company then turn around and sell it for a big check. I want to build something that will last and be able to employ a number of different people in various sustainable energy, farming, housing, or manufacturing.
I would love to start a sustainable manufacturing company that’s focusing on new, everyday products that are made out of materials like hemp or bamboo. I would also fund inventors who are coming up with new ways to better use these sustainable products for things like toilet paper, clothing, and other household necessities and then the company would own a percentage of that person’s product and those profits could be used for more ventures or small bonuses for employees who are excelling at their work.
I am very concerned about our continued rush towards automation and how we are not prepared for all the jobs that will be lost while at the same time having an ever growing population. Sustainable communities like what I’ve briefly described will become critical for better resource management. The profits from these private companies are reinvested into the communities and people are encouraged to come up with new ideas and solutions for solving problems big and small.
One entity I would love to fund is a private forest clean-up service comprised of previously unhoused veterans, and inmates who worked on firefighting crews. They would go around to all the different state and national forests (with all necessary approvals and authorizations) in the western states and clear all the excess under brush and fallen trees that are a contributing factor to all the wildfires the western states have been plagued by (and unfortunately will continue to be for the near future). I would also make sure all these employees are paid a fair wage too. The company could sell the excess wood and brush to local campgrounds or private residences that use wood burners to heat their homes.
Will this entity make a profit? Probably not (wages, benefits, work supplies would not be cheap). But it could provide a very necessary service that is desperately needed. And that’s what I want to do, build companies that make a profit and then use those profits for ventures like what I described above.
Think of how many homes and businesses could be saved if we started utilizing crews like the one described above. I know different municipalities will do controlled burns occasionally but it’s not nearly enough. This could be a legitimate service that helps a lot of people, provides good jobs, and helps us clean up our environment and potentially avoid unnecessary deaths and massive property loss that comes with every fire (we could even reach out to insurance companies to see if they want to help fund a venture like that so they’re paying out a lot less on the back-end).
I think I’m drawn to ideas like this because they’re about community and I often feel very alone and isolated (that’s what my panic attack ultimately was about, feeling forgotten and alone on my birthday (I should also state here that my girlfriend was amazing to me on my birthday and she gave me a ton of love and companionship)). I want to do things that help people. I can be socially awkward in groups but if there’s a thing for me to do that helps prove my commitment to the group or provides a direct benefit I jump at those opportunities.
We should reprioritize how we give tax benefits and breaks to companies. Our focus should be on providing those breaks to companies and organizations that are routinely hiring new people and creating good opportunities within their local communities. If you are focusing solely on the bottom line and trying to horde as much profit as possible then you will be taxed at a higher rate for that greed.
The vast majority of the adults I know do not need to be millionaires to be happy. We want good jobs that allow us to contribute to our families and communities. Most of the people I know want to travel as well and learn more about our country and the world at large. We don’t want to be filled with fear or hate of others.
If we could build better cross-country transportation like a high-speed rail or hyper loop system (why not both!?) we could make it more cost-effective to travel around our country. We could see all the different regions and better understand them, the people and the communities they’ve created. We could truly learn to love America by traveling across it. Seeing how every place is different and unique but also very similar on a broad scale.
I know we won’t be able to make people not hate someone if hate is what is truly in their heart, but we can make the change to where you have to respect someone’s humanity, personal autonomy, and right to exist and live in peace wherever they decide they want to live. People from the coasts could go to the midwest and spend more time there (in places that aren’t Chicago) and see how beautiful it can be there; how the people who live there are dynamic and not a monolith. And more people from smaller midwest towns can travel to the coastal areas and see that the people who live in major cities, or just outside of them, and that by and large everything is broadly similar.
If we invest in people and improve their lives a little bit then our country’s economy will roar. We have to be thinking of everyone’s humanity and that they have a right to live in our country and contribute in some way. We need to look to more public figures like Andrew Yang and Chamath Palihapitiya who have bold ideas for reinvigorating New York City and California. The establishment politicians are not getting it done. And they don’t care that they’re not getting it done because they continue to be voted back into office (maybe we stop voting for incumbents and start voting for new people? Just an idea).
So what does this have to do with GameStop? Well, I’m bummed that I had a bad investment strategy. I invested too much money and too much of myself into that play. I hope those still holding get a bounce back and a win of some notable capacity. I’m not mad at WSB. I’m mad at myself and the institutions that make it so fucking hard for us to try and get a little further ahead in our lives.
The other thing I’m feeling is sad. I’m mostly sad about losing some hope about a better life, the possibility of helping improve different communities, and using that money to try and improve things for myself, my girlfriend, and my family. I was blinded by greed and desperation because I didn’t feel like anyone was listening to me and this would be the way for me to do things on my own without waiting for other’s approval. I don’t like to go at things alone but if it’s something I feel passionately about then I will pursue it on my own and hope other people join me along the way.
That’s how I ended up paper handing on GameStop. It sucks that it ended the way it did for me. I shouldn’t have invested as much into it at once and watched how it played out over a few days but I did what I did. Unfortunately, there isn’t any undoing that. It’s back to the grind for me and continuing to push forward with somehow getting my projects off the ground. I’m taking the L on this one and moving forward (and doing so with one helluva lesson under my belt).
Also, Republicans, this is an example of personal accountability and self-reflection after a loss.
Also, also, I’m available for writing assignments if anyone is interested (I can be concise and stay on subject).
3/30/21 Update: I have reinvested some money into $GME but only wins made on an option call a few weeks back.
@g3kiefer 