I'm just baffled how nobody in upper management noticed that the company had so many loyal people working, for a great CEO.

500/700 are mentally ready to leave openAI and a lot probably will.

Not to mention the cheap price for MSFT to basically fully takeover OpenAI.

I'm baffled.

Update: it's now 670 out of 770 that are ready to leave. source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/20/hundreds-of-openai-employees-threaten-to-follow-altman-to-microsoft-unless-board-resigns-reports-say.html

I think china is fucked and will be fucked up completely around the 2030 2035 mark how can I bet on that?

Edit: Because some tankie is offended in the comments that I dare offend the great chinese state with my personal opinion I will lay out why I personally think that here.

Here is my CHINA IS FUCKED thread...

Their population is rapidly aging, decreasing rapidly and still suffers from the gender imbalance.

On top of thatt, they just admitted that they overcounted their population by 100 million people.

Goodbye consumption-based growth.

Its GDP is vastly overstated. If you think it really is as big as they claim, ask yourself why you believe statistics from a known liar autocracy?

Independent researchers claim it is overstated by as much as 60%. If their research is off by half, it's still 30% overstated! 🤯

Their massive government debt is hidden among provinces and corporations. Remember that in 🤡🇨🇳, all private corporations are ultimately owned by the state.

The government itself has no idea how much debt they have.

As if that debt load is not enough, their signature Belt and Road Initiative is turning out to be a financial debacle, with most countries not being able to pay back the debt. So they will have to write that off eventually. There is just no way around it.

Their unemployment among college graduates is a staggering 25%. So high that the government announced in July that they will no longer publish this statistic. Way to go 🤡🇨🇳

And now comes the craziest part of it all....

A newly published report states that 🤡🇨🇳 has built so much housing that it currently can house 2 billion people. That's TWICE their population!! 🤯

Who is going to purchase that? No one. And remember, their population is shrinking anyways. Their massive debt-financed investment in their housing is going to sink entirely.

30% of China's fake GDP is because of their property sector. 30%! And they have >100% real estate capacity!!

To put that into comparison, 16% of USA GDP is based on real estate. US financial crisis was caused when it had 5% over-capacity.

So China is more than twice ad dependent on real estate and has 20x bigger bubble than we had when our economy melted down

34 of China's 50 biggest property developers are now in default. Data on hundreds more smaller developers is not available

That doesnt include the largest of China's property developer, Everglades, which is about to go into default due to its $341B debt that it can no longer pay back.

Chinese people are no longer buying property. Because they often paid 100% down on apartments that can not be built because there is no money.

It's estimated that over 60 million people paid 100% down on properties that will never be built and their money can't be returned because the developers spent it on unfinished ghost cities.

I've been to many ghost cities in China. Its a sight to behold. Completely unfinished cities that will eventually be taken back by nature.

The largest pyramid scheme in the history of the world is now collapsing in 🤡🇨🇳 and there is nothing their government can do about it

And it gets better...

And since Covid as well as consistent Chinese belligerence, there is a mass rush of western companies diversifying production to India, Philippines, Mexico and Vietnam because China is too risky.

Remember Japan's incredible growth post WW2 that ended up with 35 consecutive years of zero GDP growth? China is going to be like that but on the wildest steroids imaginable.

China is going to suffer from a multi-generational economic debacle.

When they told you they handled Covid better than anyone else? They lied. There are untold millions of people in China who are now dying from it but they hide the statistics

Never-ending that they gifted us Covid, Swine flu and Bird flu in the first place. I'll blame them for ebola just to top it off

"The Chinese Century" my ass.

More like tHe cHịNèSé cĔntŰrîE

China is more than twice as dependent on real estate and has 20x bigger bubble than USA had when our economy melted down.

Tens of millions of people, if not more, are going to lose their life savings and the government doesn't have enough money to bail them out

when the Chinese people get restless with their leadership, the leadership as they already started doing, will fan nationalism in order to redirect the anger of the people away from them. They are grabbing land (sea areas) and WILL stir up shit everywhere

And more Chinese belligerence towards USA, Philippines and Vietnam and Japan

But that only buys them limited time. People will only overlook their lost life savings for a short while

🤡🇨🇳 will have to choose whether to help it's people or continue to build its military or prop up its economy.

The thing is, it will be in such a massive debt burden that it won't be able to do any of it

Like I said, 🤡🇨🇳 is FUCKED.

Fucked for generations. They've peaked as a superpower before they ever became anything more than just a widely hated regional hegemon.

List of sources: 🖕

[So I'm a Mandarin-speaking Asian dude from Texas. This is all anecdotal, so this is only my first-hand observations. Feelings are useless in trading. You are a moron if you trade off a story versus hard facts.] I was in Beijing for a wedding, then was a tourist through Chengdu and Harbin and various villages in between.

First, locals are freaked out the CCP is so embarrassed youth unemployment is over 21% that they will stop reporting the number starting the next month. For reference, places like Japan, South Korea and the US are at 5 to 7% youth unemployment, UK at 10%, EU at 14%. Twenty one puts China in the same territory as fucking Lebanon. Heard many an angry rant against the government by middle-age and older parents behind closed doors talking about how their adult kids are unemployed even with a C9 university degree. I met many, many food cart vendors and Meituan (food delivery app) dudes on ebikes who just graduated from a top school. This on top of all the quiet quitting and "lying flat" people I met who are just giving up and not looking for steady work. Several parents told me how the old cushy government jobs for grads are drying up because cities are all teetering on bankruptcy due to the growth-at-all-costs spending and debt of the past 20 years.

Second, these shady fucks are not reporting unemployed migrant workers from rural areas. There's got to be millions of these people. I thought migrants were reported after the CCP revamped their labor reporting standards in 2019, but the business owners and university faculty I met and talked to said it is all bullshit, there is no way to track them. I stayed at a friend's flat near central Chengdu and every morning there were hundreds of migrant day laborers at the truck depot across the street waiting for trucks and vans to drive up looking for cheap labor. Shit was wild, there would be literally fistfights over who would pile into each truck. Reminded me of the Honduran, Mexican and Salvadorian migrants back in Dallas who line up near Home Depots looking for day work, sans violence. The day labor dudes I talked to in those mobs in Chengdu and Beijing were almost all former construction workers who are now doing day work or gig jobs because all the construction jobs are gone thanks to the imploding real estate market (see Evergrande bankruptcy). They told me the day labor crowds were easily 3x bigger right after COVID but the work was so rare that folks packed up and returned to their villages when they ran out of money. Multiple that a couple hundred times, who knows how many unemployed ppl aren't being counted.

Another big problem no one is talking about that I noticed - China made working construction over 50 illegal. So now there's millions up on millions of people over that age trying to fill other service jobs even before COVID. Thanks to the One Child Policy and non-existent government benefits, there aren't the large family safety nets that other Asian countries have so I could see with my own eyes many older folks with no savings already falling through the cracks.

Shit is fucked. I've been to China a few times since 2000 and this is the first time I could see and hear deep structural stress on the economy and society. China has always felt like the Wild West to me because there's just so many people there living on top of each other that everyone just looks out for themselves. Even before COVID, I rarely saw common courtesies like the waiting in line and not being rude to strangers. That selfishness still exists but is now on hyperdrive since people don't have easy access to jobs anymore. I'm curious how Xi is going to keep people in line when the wheels come off completely. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

edit. LOL someone referred me to Reddit Cares for this post. Don't worry, I don't plan on ever travelling back to China, I decided awhile ago this would be my last trip. I have zero family there and the friend I stayed with in Chengdu is a non-Chinese expat. I love Chinese people and culture, that is why I kept going back. But you don't need to be in China to exclusively experience it.

Americans didn’t pay an estimated $688 billion in taxes due on their 2021 returns—the largest shortfall ever. Audits and other enforcement will be stepped up to reduce the gap, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday. The number includes $542 billion due to underreported income, with the remainder of the shortfall owed by those who didn’t file returns when they should have or never paid their bills. The total gap is up more than $138 billion from estimates for tax years 2017 to 2019. Much of the increase is due to economic growth. The IRS said there has also been a shift from wage income, for which taxes are withheld, to gig economy jobs, for which there is a lower degree of compliance. Taxpayers’ overall compliance rate is projected to stay relatively steady at 86.3% for tax year 2021, after audits and other enforcement actions. The largest element of noncompliance, $182 billion, was attributable to undeclared business and farm income reported on Schedule C and F on individual returns. “This increase in the tax gap underscores the importance of increased IRS compliance efforts on key areas,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel in a statement.

Read more

One week ago, I reached out of Robinhood to inquire if I could cash out (exercise) my puts if FRC is suspended.

Exhibit 1

I was assured in writing that I would be able to exercise my in the money puts into a short position in the scenario that FRC is suspended.

Exhibit 2

I bought and held puts which are now worth $295,000 based on these written assurances from this Robinhood representative.

Current position, if exercised would be worth $295,000

I reached out to support recently to confirm what they already told me; that I would be able to exercise my options by entering a short position. They responded saying I "may" be able to exercise, but as of now they do not allow short sales

Being gaslit by a Robinhood representative

I've already consulted a lawyer. Based on these written guarantees, I am likely to win if this comes down to a lawsuit. Robinhood, which claims to represent retail investors, has yet again proven to have no regard for their customers. While I am fully willing to go the legal route, I urge my fellow WSBers to put pressure on Robinhood to do the right thing. My correct bet, could potentially expire worthless as a result of Robinhood's lying, backstabbing practices.

We did not allow Robinhood to get away with disabling the buy button. Yet time and time again they’ve shown they have no problem mistreating their users and causing large financial losses. The only time they act is when there is a large enough public backlash. Let’s hold Robinhood accountable. This is not just for me, it’s for the thousands who made the correct bet on FRC and may have their gains held hostage by Robinhood.

The OCC has released guidance allowing FRC put holders to cash out and exercise their puts. Multiple brokerages like IBKR and Fidelity are allowing put holders without shares to exercise into a short position if they have enough cash collateral.

Robinhood is also allowing FRC put holders to exercise. However due to their policy against short selling, most put holders are unable to exercise and cash out.

Robinhood playing chicken with my life savings

I falsely assumed Robinhood had its users best interests at heart. In fact I was so confident, that I arrogantly claimed Robinhood would allow me to exercise. Robinhood had previously allowed SBNY put holders to exercise. I foolishly used this amongst other misinformation to misconstrue that Robinhood cared about its customers. I am deeply sorry to everyone I lashed out on defending such a corrupt, vile, dishonorable company.

Yes I have a huge stake in making this post: my life savings

I greedily ignored the advice of WSB and held my winning position until FRC was halted. I was overwhelmingly warned not to count on Robinhood to do right by its customers. I am extremely regretful for not listening. I know I'm not the right person to be championing this. I acted like a cocky asshole to everyone because I was so sure of myself. I was wrong and I am sorry.

However, this is bigger than my dumb degenerate gambling ass. This is an injustice. Robinhood has every ability to cash out FRC put holders. Yet they will allow people who correctly bet against First Republic to lose everything. Thousands of dollars in Robinhood customer’s FRC puts will expire worthless on Friday. We cannot let Robinhood get away with ripping its customers off for thousands of dollars. This billion dollar company treats it's users like worthless pond scum. FUCK ROBINHOOD.

I urge everyone reading this to reach out to Robinhood via Twitter and other social media platforms. If Robinhood bends to the pressure and allows short selling on FRC for put holders, I will donate $10,000 of my gains to the Autism Society of America. Under threat of ban, I make this donation pledge.

Footnote: Yes, I will attempt to sue Robinhood if they do not allow me to exercise. This is my last ditch effort to exhaust all routes before taking that leap.

Update: FRC will resume trading on OTC tomorrow. I should be able to sell my puts for a large gain. However Robinhood has a policy against OTC trading too. Thus they still may not let me cash out. The battle may continue….

Update update: RH support confirmed that I “should” be able to sell my puts tomorrow. Not for certain, but looks very likely I can cash out tomorrow.

Student loan payments start again this month, and mortgage rates just hit 8%. My company is usually a little high, even Rocket Mortgage is showing 7.846% with 2.25 points. Not fear mongering, but its gonna be a "winter of death". Biden got it right, but was talking about the market, not the coovids.

All you hear are Bears saying there will be a recession soon! But GDP was 4.9%. Where is the negative GDP?

Here’s the thing. The recession already happened. It’s not something they want to say, but it’s true. We’re at the tail end of the recession going into a bull market. We had 2 negative GDP quarters last year. That was the recession. The data is sitting right in front of your eyes, but you refuse to believe it.

2024-2025 will be full of bull runs again. Inflation will be lower and interest rates will slowly come down to a healthy number.

In 2029, this era will be known as the 2022 recession. 2023 was feeling the aftermath, and 2024-2025 will be back to your normally scheduled program.

Just watch .

I was doing some math. After factoring in my income+ short term capital gains, I will owe around $50k in taxes.

Most years I’ve got a tax refund, now they want me to pay them. I always file my own taxes so I think I understand the tax code well. I’ve already factored in a 13k standard deduction, 6.5k IRA deduction, 3k carry over loss deduction. Yet I will still owe around 50k when combining fed and state tax. This is too much money.

My first thought was I could get a 7.5k tax credit if I buy a Tesla, but I don’t qualify for that anymore since I’m over the income limit. Or maybe I could deduct the Tesla as a business expense since I would day trade on the touch screen? I don’t own a house, so I can’t buy solar panels and get a 33% tax credit.

I haven’t found a good way to legally reduce my tax burden. The government wants to take the hard earned money from my yolos. They didn’t yolo, I DID. I am prepared to flee the country and live abroad forever while I keep yoloing. After a few years they’ll probably try to come after me, but I’d be living in Mexico or something. Using the 50k I could fund a down payment on a nice house in a poorer country. Maybe a country without extradition laws?

Should I flee the country or is there a way I can legally lower my tax burden from 50k?

I put meme as the flair because Youtube / $GOOGL is such a meme.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/04/credit-card-and-car-loan-defaults-hit-10-year-high-as-inflation-squeezes-families/amp/

Will this lead to 2008 type of depression?

I’m watching all these iPhone 15 commercials that tout “With Titanium”. The titanium sides do literally nothing to improve the phone. I always thought Apple made its business on innovation and design. Should we be concerned or am I over-reacting to the marketing?

The world is going to collapse.

I just seen multiple bearish posts indicating the end of time.

Motley Fool has consistently posted bearish sentiment articles by credible financial journalists and we all know that Motley Fool has an impeccable track record and we should all be subscribing to their daily top 3 picks as they would never steer you in the wrong direction. Very reliable source of information, even better than the Bloomberg terminal some might say.

As the good old saying goes, “What’s a Bloomberg terminal when you got a Motley Fool subscription.” Am I right, or Am I right?

The top major banks have just announced an approximate amount in the ballpark of $650B in unrealized losses from bonds which have yet to mature while having assets worth multiples that of said unrealized losses … long story short, a liquidity problem is definitely on the rise.

The U.S. have been announcing a possibility of a government shut down for the 14,765th time during a time when there are multiple wars backed by the states, we will be without internet and back to caveman times by next Friday.

Microsoft will change its name to Microhard, that’s how bad its going to get.

South Korea is ending the ability of short selling. It’s all coming together.

To make things interesting, as we all know to inverse, reverse, side-verse, and disperse WSB …

Calls and Puts on $SPY.

I know the title sounds deranged, but I swear to god im not a troll. Here’s the context:

My bf and I are long distance, so we used to have plenty of phone sex, however, that’s been happening less and less often as our relationship has gone on (according to him, he just doesn’t feel as horny as often anymore). We’ve met and had relations irl a few times, and he’s always the kind to last very long in bed, and during phone sex as well. I used to be insecure about it, thinking that maybe it was something wrong with me, but hes genuinely a great bf who constantly assures me, and has never once said anything bad about our sex life.

It should be noted that he watches plenty of porn (as do I), and neither of us see that as an issue, so this isnt about him hiding porn from me or something. We were calling today, and I was playing a game on my phone (papa’s cupcakeria, you can’t make this shit up), and after about twenty minutes of us doing our own thing, he suddenly goes “im done” and shows me his cum????? Obviously, I get really confused and ask how the hell he was jerking off this whole time without me realising (we were on video call), before mentioning that I thought he was looking at the stock market (he spends his free time just staring at the stock market for hours on end like a lunatic, but I love him so it’s whatever).

Tell me why this man then looks me in the eyes and goes “yeah, I was looking at the stock market, I was too lazy to look for porn.”

It then hits me that he literally just CAME to the stock market. When I point this out to him, all he said in response was “it’s a man thing, I didn’t wanna bother you while you were playing your game” and told me not to worry about it.

Now, I don’t want to sound insane, but I got a bit upset, because in my head, he could have very easily asked to have phone sex with me, but chose to literally jerk off to the stock market instead. To add insult to injury, he came REALLY quickly (like significantly quicker than he would during anything involving me) which makes me feel like SHIT, because there is no way the goddamn stock market is somehow more stimulating than his own damn girlfriend.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m not super genuinely upset, but you’ve gotta admit this shits gonna hurt your pride if it happened to you. I honest to god have no idea how to even move forward after this, and I just needed to type this out, because no one would believe me otherwise 💀

Gamestop (GME) Earnings Summary:

• EPS of $0.16 beats ($0.13) estimate
• Rev of $2.23B beats $2.18B estimate
• Posted a quarterly profit for the first time in two years
• Selling, general and administrative expenses came in at 20.4% of sales, compared to 23.9% of sales
• Inventory was $682.9M at Close of 4Q, compared to $915M at Close of Prior Year’s 4Q
• Net Income was $48.2M, compared to a net loss of $147.5M for the prior year’s 4Q
• Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $1.391B at Close of 4Q

I live in Atlanta, where these assholes are buying up more houses than anywhere else in the country.

I'm willing to bet more than one of them have atrocious balance sheets and tons of debt.

I can't wait for one of these to go under and flood the market with their inventory.

Ideally this will then lower housing prices in the surrounding area, causing the next one to go bust, then the next one, then the next one, like dominos.

Getting my popcorn ready.

​

Edit: wow this post really blew up. Ummmm if everyone here just bought a little bit of LUMN, I might not be down 87%. What a dumpster fire of a company. This is not financial advice, or is it?

Lost my entire life savings of 30k last year trading options. This year I was able to get a loan and line of credit and I lost all of that. Now in debt $22,000 on a $36,000 income with $1600 rent and $200 utilities. Girlfriend has no idea how irresponsible I am. Any idea how to recover? I don’t want to trade anymore it destroyed my life.

The people praising this are insane.

Is this whole sector a scam? I remember an episode from South Park where they call it a ponzi scheme and this seems to be closer and closer to the truth with everyday that passes.

How can some of the biggest crypto players like SBF and CZ be criminals? I know cryptocurrencies are speculative assets but I thought they had a vision for decentralisation and independence as outlined in the original Bitcoin white paper.

Was that all a lie? Is this entire empire a giant ponzi scheme built on an endless cascade of scams?

Where is the integrity in this sector? And what value do cryptocurrencies produce that justifies their price point?

It’s easy to spend my entire life focused primarily on money.. ever since I was 10 years old I was worried about bills. Now I’m turning 30 and was estimating what my stock portfolio would be like in 10 years if I yield 10% per year (average market gains). Turns out that’s how long it’ll take me to break even, not accounting for inflation. (Regarded in the highest) But when you see how fast runaway inflation can erode the dollar’s value, it’s hardly reassuring. Reminds me that one day I’ll be dead, and it won’t matter how much money I had. If the dollar can lose 50% in value in 5 years, then it’s all fake anyhow. Not that money doesn’t matter, but just to remember I’m chasing a fake piece of cotton paper backed by nothing, gives me a little power back.

Thanks WSB. And fuck you

Everyone talking about this....and as far as cuts/hikes it doesn't seem like a pipe dream anymore.

So im no economist but I gather a soft landing pretty much means we are avoiding a recession/mass unemployment/defaults. So if that happens....doesnt that also mean that we are gonna keep paying what we are currently paying for things? Shit never goes on sale any more either, so are we basically gonna keep paying top dollar for every single thing we buy from now on?

WSB! All the degenerates, even the apes, I've missed you. Things are going well here. I'm still getting used to society. I have a lot of little restrictions that are annoying, but I'm mostly back to normal.

What's up with the stock market? There is a lot of arbitrage/alpha out there. Times like these separate classes of traders and define future superstars. My advice: don't use leverage, hold cash, sell anything you're not 100% sure is a great investment and consider alternatives to just buy and HODL (selling options, shorting, etc.)

I'll be around every day from here on out. Any questions, anything you need from Wall Street, any stock you want me to buy or sell, just let me know. I have always been trying to represent for the "little guy", having made hundreds of YouTube videos on investing and answering as many questions as I can. That doesn't mean every stock is going to make it, or that I'm always right. Investing/trading is a humbling and difficult exercise. Nevertheless, I'll have some original stock picks & DD coming in the next few days.

AMA!!!