Can Meme Stocks Shift the Economy in Favor of the Little Guy?
The financial system has been turned on its head in the past few months with the rise of what has been named “meme stocks.” But is this grassroots movement of regular everyday investors a passing trend? Or could they really transform the way our economy works going forward?
“Meme stocks,” called such because they are ordinary stocks fueled by people through social media, can spike in value based on the zeitgeist and not the fundamentals of the companies they represent, and as a result can often be highly volatile. Made famous by the popular subreddit r/wallstreetbets, this is truly a grassroots movement.
But even with the volatility that comes with these stocks, investors are not shying away from them. Many investors are doubling down, despite warnings from financial institutions, or perhaps in spite of them. But what is driving the popularity of meme stocks, and why do they continue to grow contrary to what markets dictate?
Zeus Yiamouyiannis, author of “Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities,” explains:
“Well the first thing I think is the larger social phenomenon of the little guy getting screwed, and the big guy rigging the game. And it has never been any more rigged and the concentration of wealth has never been more dramatic, and so what happens is it creates this groundswell of desire to strike back at an unfair system, to strike back at these profiteers, and to win one for the little guys.”
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5 Blockchain Applications That Could Change Society Forever
When most people think about the term “blockchain” their minds immediately go to cryptocurrency and bitcoin, but in reality, there are many different blockchain applications. As this technology continues to gain traction, it’s myriad uses will be used to solve and improve upon many institutions in our society from voting, to real estate, and electronic gadgets. So what is the blockchain exactly?
The Blockchain Explained
The concept of money is based on trust, or faith, in the system. We’ve all agreed that a centralized authority, in this case the government, will maintain stability in regulating money so it can be used as a tool for trade. The same goes with contracts upheld by law; a centralized institution is an arbiter that will make sure the terms of your contract are upheld. But with blockchain technology, that power can be distributed throughout many disparate entities, rather than one centralized authority, making it so that one entity can’t have all the regulatory power.
The blockchain, also called distributed ledger technology, is essentially a digital database managed by a decentralized system, consisting of a number of different computers, in lieu of a single centralized server. These different computers are referred to as nodes and all of them are connected in a randomized way.
