This is unbelievable. If there ever was a time to be outraged. This is naked corruption as usual hiding under the shabbiest veil of virtue. RobinHood traders can bankrupt and kill themselves, and that is fine, we will continue prodding them to trade more often, but once we get a call from one our hedge fund buddies, moaning about the rubes stopping him from raping another company, we will shut the rabble down.
What matters is the lower 50% (aka the poor) get to see, for a brief moment, how the machine really works. WallSt will get their way this time, but I doubt those people will just live as usual with the gained knowledge.
I believe the government and taxpayers made money on the bailout, see sources like: https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/
The financial institutions got themselves in a bad spot, and instead of failing they were helped out, but they paid it back with interest.
That's worse. Institutional investors want people to sell. It's in their advantage. It quite clearly a one way benefit for banning purchase but not selling.
other brokers still allow buying of gamestop stock. This is purely robinhoods decision to block trading using their app. There is no official market wide block.
The problem is that much of the buy demand seems to be on the retail side. But the retailers have shut that down, so you're left selling to a portion of the market that has the lease demand for what you're selling.
Because sexual abuse is a visceral trauma real to many people, by some estimates 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men have experienced sexual abuse. Those who have experienced sexual abuse also face higher risks of PTSD, drug abuse, suicide, and many other challenges. They also often never report their abuse, never discuss it with others, and suffer lifelong emotional distress at higher rates than for any other violent crime.
Consequently, sexual violence is not treated lightly in most public discourse. In that sense, it is simply a common courtesy.
That's true, when used, it is generally for dramatic effect.
Another response mentioned words like "kill, maim, torture, force, destroy", which also may be used for dramatic effect. I imagine that one criticism of such word choices might be that they lead to sensationalism or hyperbole.
However, the use of sexual violence in analogy is unique in comparison to those examples, precisely because sexual abuse is a trauma that has been experienced by so many, unlike being killed or tortured.
While I mentioned rates of general sexual abuse in my previous comment, rates for forced penetration are particularly relevant, about 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 70 for men [1]. The gender disparity in such rates is important, since it helps explain why different genders have different attitudes regarding this issue.
For example, some studies show that women find sexual violence related humor to be significantly less enjoyable than men, perhaps unsurprisingly. Meanwhile, others show that men's enjoyment of such humor is positively correlated with self reported likelihood of forcing sex [2].
Given this gender imbalance, it's not surprising then that the acceptability of such language would be significantly affected by the demographics of the audience. In male dominated environments it would be less likely that many would raise objections, and thereby more likely that the group would ultimately accept such language (in fact, the parent comment to your "Why" question has now been flagged and hidden while the original analogy remains). However, as the audience increases in size and diversity, it will be more likely that there will be objections to such language.
This is a long way of saying that sexual violence is not treated lightly in most public discourse, while clarifying that by "public" I mean an audience with demographics reflecting the general population, particularly a balanced distribution of genders.
The analogy above may be accepted here or on a forum like r/wallstreetbets, but it would likely be seen as less appropriate on a public earnings call.
You can be outraged without donning a pair of horns and running through the capitol with a stolen lectern. This kind of overcharged rhetoric gets us nowhere when rhetoric is all we have to solve the problem.
You know, one day this sort of thing will happen to you or someone or something you care about, and you will instantly be enlightened on the dangers of unchecked power.
It could also be RobinHood trying to avoid their traders bankrupting and killing themselves by restricting them from buying gamestop etc. shares at 10x what they are worth.
They are artificially reducing the buying volume. Anyone that bought GameStop recently on their platform is now stuck holding the bag or selling for less than it currently would be worth if they were not artificially reducing the buying demand. How do you think people that bought in over $300 feel now that Robinhood has done this? They made a decision knowing about the volatility and that it is likely to go up further due to short squeeze. Now RobinHood has changed the game in after-hours with no warning.
How could that possibly work, ever? If RH can stop me from making a trade they deem bad, why don't they just trade on my behalf? This is nonsense. Any pretense of caring for their users could be faked by simply putting a banner up on the forbidden securities. They do not care one iota beyond being able to generate fodder for the hedge funds who pay their bills.
A stock market trading app, for consumers, trying to protect consumers by... not letting them buy stocks? If Robin Hood cared about consumers, they probably wouldn't have given them credit that they could then go buy options with.
That's indeed what they are claiming but it's pretty clearly just the easiest excuse they can give no matter the reason. Similar to how it's the easiest reason for discord to say they are banning wsb because of bad language.
Robinhood explicitly disavows itself of that responsibility. Quoting from their literature:
> If you are interested in opening an account where you do not receive recommendations or advice about whether to buy or sell investments or investment strategies or account monitoring, and you make all of your own investment decisions, then a self-directed brokerage like ours could be the right fit for you. Robinhood Financial does not have account minimums for any brokerage accounts. Robinhood Financial does not provide recommendations. We are not subject to a fiduciary duty to you and do not monitor or manage your account, including the monitoring of brokerage account investments, unless we state otherwise in writing. Since we do not provide recommendations and you must make all of your own investment decisions, the licenses, education and other qualifications of our financial professionals will not be relevant to your investment decisions. Robinhood Financial professionals are available only to provide account support through an online email system. If you choose our services, you must be comfortable with investing your assets on your own.
