Hello, here’s a quick recap of why you’re here:
On Thursday 1/28/21, we tried to purchase shares of $gme through our online brokers, only to find the market had been manipulated to prevent us from participating in it.
We were pissed. Finding inspiration from Congresswoman Tlaib’s tweet, I called the House Financial Services Committee (FSC) to demand a hearing on wall street market manipulation. I asked if anyone else had called, since the market had been open for a few hours at that point, and they said no.
Around 11am EST, I made a comment on a r/wallstreetbets post noting that I was the only one to contact the FSC so far. I asked people to channel their outrage into making calls of their own, and to also reach out to their state attorney general’s offices, and specific members of congress. I was overwhelmed with messages, many of them from people who said they had never made any calls like this before, and asked me to help them figure out what to say.
About 2 hours later, Matt Ford, a writer for The New Republic, wrote this tweet:
By the end of the day both the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee had announced hearings. Politicians from both parties spoke out against online brokers, wall street market manipulation, and focused on Gamestop and Robinhood specifically.
The next morning (1/28/21), Robinhood placed an ad hiring for a “Federal Affairs Manager” (read: Lobbyist) to fight against us in these hearings.
So I made another comment on r/wallstreetbets asking for anyone interested to join together to unite politically against wall street.
Hundreds of you emailed me and signed up for this list.
I’ve spent the last 24+ hours reading every message and responding to everyone personally. And it’s clear. While we’re all different, we all agree on one thing: FUCK WALL STREET.
Some of the messages you sent:
“After 4 years of no sleep, fearing for my friends and family, one violent insurrection, and an utter loss of belief in our society, I am ready to mobilize. I think a PAC is a perfect way to send the message that we are tired of being misrepresented.”
“I have never been involved with a PAC before but you and the people of WSB are fighting the good fight to protect the average hard working american, like myself.”
“Many on WSB feel they are dealing with a rigged system in which freedom to invest is a privilege – and only the Big Boys can win.”
I’m grateful we found each other on /r/wallstreetbets this week, and now for their sake and ours we’ll need to move away from WSB affiliation in-name. Our working title is changing to Fuck Wall Street, and potentially the Fuck Wall Street PAC. To be clear, there is no relationship here with WSB or Reddit.
I know you all have a lot going on, and are recovering from some unbelievable bullshit these last few days, on top of a year of some steady streams of bullshit these last too many months. So here’s what could happen next, if we want to make this a thing: (Everything beyond this list is background reading for those interested).
What’s next?
SPREAD THE WORD. We can use this list to make organized rallying cries to call members of congress and specific committees as the bullshit continues and the hearings begin. Wall street tends to worm its way out of any true reforms or consequences historically, so we need to stay on top of them. Share this with any of your friends/family/coworkers/etc, who are pissed off too, because the more calls and emails we can drive, the more impact we can have.
FIGHT BACK. In the meantime, (and no matter what happens here) you can text the word RESIST to 50409, and send a letter to congress right now, right from your phone. You can (and should) do this for anything too, not just right now to tell them wall street sucks and you’re sick of it. (Check out ResistBot if you want to learn more, and thanks to the person who suggested it!)
GET INVOLVED. We need to figure out who and what resources we have here. If you can offer up your time, knowledge, experience, donations, connections, etc, then I can use them. For this to grow, I need help from you. Fill out this form if you would like to get involved: HELP FUCK WALL STREET.
CHANGE THE SYSTEM. Finally, we can unite against a common evil, one that needs to be addressed as these hearings progress, and as wall street continues to incentivize greed and shitting on American businesses and people without restraint. WE NEED TO FIGHT TO PREVENT SITTING POLITICIANS FROM TRADING STOCK.
Keep reading if you have the time and interest to dig deeper. Otherwise, I just need you to share this email with anyone you think is interested, and to reach out if you’re able to help me grow this.
Good luck this week. This isn’t financial advice, but I like the stock ($gme), and I’m fucking holding.
-FuckWallStreet
For those wanting a deeper dive
Why should we ultimately make this movement about preventing elected officials from trading stock?
Our elected officials trade hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock every year
"…between 1985 and 2001, members of the House of Representatives outperformed the market by about 6% per year. Members of the Senate did even better, crushing market returns by more than 12% annually in the study period of 1993 to 1998. Either our lawmakers just happen to be some of the best investors in the world, or they're using their position to gain information not available to regular investors and writing regulations to enrich themselves." (source)
More recently:
“One analysis of 61,998 stock trades made from 2004 to 2010, for instance, showed that politicians outperformed the market by 20 percent.” (source)
The fact that our elected officials are able to freely trade stock while in office, while recieving insider information that is not available to the public, means they are living and breathing in conflicts of interest, and turning public service into public corruption. Or, as this New Republic article puts it:
"It is impossible to avoid the appearance of corrupt self-dealing if the people responsible for oversight of the economy, and for creating the laws that govern how the economy operates, are also allowed to personally trade individual stocks."
We should not have to worry that our elected officials have to choose between the best interests of the American people and the best interests of their personal portfolio.
In my lifetime I have experienced several “once in a lifetime” economic downturns, and all of them have had the fucking greed of wall street as their root cause. The only thing different this week was how wall street, major media outlets, and big tech united in an aggressive and ubiquitous attack against everyday Americans.
No matter where you land on the political spectrum, we should all expect our lawmakers and public officials to make decisions based on what's best for the people they represent, not what's best for their own portfolios.
For that reason, this movement should grow into a force demanding we end this cycle. Congress and politicians cannot hold wall street accountable if they also benefit from wall street. Let’s make sure they’re working for us, and fight to prevent sitting politicians from trading stock.
Send me your thoughts.
-FWS
Footnote on financial support.
I tried to bury this at the bottom of the email because it’s not at all my focus or priority. I am not equipped right now to accept any donations or financial support for FWS. However, a surprising number of you have reached out and asked if you could send something to me personally. Some said it was to thank me for helping them reach out and call congress for the first time, and others just said they wanted to share some of the jaw-dropping gains they made on dogecoin with someone who they thought was doing a good thing. If you truly want to donate something to me, (specifically, me, personally) then send me a message directly. It’s not necessary or expected, but I am learning in life one should not resist kindness when it comes knocking.