Tim Aqua

[domoshi @heydomoshi]

I bought 1 share of $EBAY earlier this month.

That means I’ve bought more shares than the people running the company have in the last 5 years combined.

🤯

[Ryan Cohen @ryancohen]

The Hollow Men

American capitalism is rotting from the head down. We have replaced the "Owner-Operator"—the risk-taker-with a new, parasitic class of corporate bureaucrat: The Risk-Free Insider.

By "Insider," I am not referring to a specific title. I am referring to the entire administrative state that has captured the modern corporation. This includes the Directors who exist solely to collect fees, the Executives who exist solely to collect bonuses, and the Managers who exist solely to hire consultants.

These are the hollow men of the boardroom. They are masters of PowerPoint. They wear the right suits. They say the right buzzwords about "governance" and "ESG." But they are mercenaries fighting a war with someone else’s ammunition.

In a functioning economy, authority is tied to liability. If you make a bad decision, you lose your own money. That fear of loss is the only thing that keeps a business honest. It forces you to cut waste, obsess over the customer, and stay late to fix what is broken.

Today, we have severed that link.

We have rigged the game so that heads, the Insider wins; tails, the shareholder loses.

If the stock goes up, the Insider collects a massive performance bonus. If the stock crashes due to their own incompetence, they are fired with a "Golden Parachute" worth tens of millions. They are gambling with the house’s money, and they never leave the table poorer than they arrived.

This looting starts in the boardroom.

We have normalized a "Country Club" culture where directors are selected based on social profiling rather than their ability to build a business. The modern board member is often a professional tourist—paid an average of $350,000 a year.

Let’s be brutally honest about what that number represents. The average director is paid nearly five times the GDP per capita of the United States. They earn more for attending four quarterly lunches than the vast majority of Americans earn in five years of hard labor.

And for what?

Most of these directors are "over-boarded," sitting on three or four boards simultaneously. They treat directorships as a gig economy for the elite. They fly in, rubber-stamp a compensation package they didn't read, and fly out. They collect checks from companies they do not understand, do not use, and certainly do not love.

They are not there to ask hard questions. They are there to be collegial. They are there to protect the other Insiders.

And what happens when these boards hire executives who also have no personal capital at risk?

We get the Delegation Economy.

When a Risk-Free Insider faces a crisis—bloated expenses, a broken supply chain, or a stale product—they do not roll up their sleeves. They hire a consultant. They pay a strategy firm millions of shareholder dollars to produce a 100-page deck telling them what they already know.

This is not management. It is intellectual money laundering.

They use shareholder capital to buy an insurance policy for their own careers. If the plan fails, they can blame the consultants. They delegate the work because they are terrified of the responsibility. They would rather preside over a slow, comfortable decline than risk a bold mistake.

While American Insiders are busy optimizing their severance packages, our global competitors are optimizing their products. They are not slowed down by bureaucracy. They are not waiting for a slide deck. They are outworking us.

If we continue to fill our C-suites with administrators instead of operators, we will lose our edge. We will see iconic American franchises hollowed out by fees, managed for the benefit of the Insiders, while the true owners—the shareholders—are left holding the bag.

The time for polite governance is over.

If we want to save the American economy from mediocrity, we must demand a return to the "Owner’s Mentality." We need leaders who treat shareholder capital with the same reverence they treat their own savings. The era of the Risk-Free Insider must end.

[Alex Thompson @sierrastrades]

$GME CHAT, THIS IS ACTUALLY HUGE.

CALL YOUR MOM FOR REAL THIS TIME. 👇

[Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47]

NUMBER 9: President Trump presides over the end of the 20-year Console Wars 🕊️

[Ryan Cohen @ryancohen]

Looking for a highly talented and creative Motion Designer for a few months, maybe more. Email your portfolio to [email protected]

[Susanne Trimbath PhD @SusanneTrimbath]

Compel change:
1) Fine$ for FTDs [NO "margin call" waivers at NSCC's whim]
2) Mandatory Buy-In
3) If Buy-In fails, raise offer$ til it closes
4) Suspend & close DTCC accounts for FTDs
5) Create criminal law for BDs who harm #HouseholdInvestors
6) Give power back to states @NASAA

[Dave Lauer @dlauer]

Heads up everyone, we'll be having a Town Hall today at Noon ET. Hope you can join us and talk market reform.

[Ian Carroll @IanCarrollShow]

@jamesvjani 🤣🤣🤣 bro your timing on this is going to be an L of internet lore.

[Susanne Trimbath PhD @SusanneTrimbath]

When I talk to regulators and bankers about problems with failures-to-deliver, they often respond that there is no rule against it. Indeed, there is no specific rule that says that the seller of stock cannot fail to deliver shares on settlement date. Yet it seems clear that if someone takes your money and doesn’t give you what they promise, there are laws against it.
Look at it this way: there is no specific law that says, “it is a crime to hit a person on the head with a hammer.” Yet I assure you that if I hit you on the head with a hammer the police will arrest me for a crime. It will have some other name (like “assault with a deadly weapon”) instead of “the crime of hitting a person on the head with a hammer.” It is just as much a crime, and I would be just as much arrested. Page 113. https://t.co/p7GBIJntPq

[Gold Telegraph ⚡ @GoldTelegraph_]

BREAKING NEWS

BANK OF JAPAN GOVERNOR KAZUO UEDA WARNS GLOBAL MARKETS ARE UNSTABLE

The circus is back in session.

[Kevin Malone @Malone_Wealth]

I checked the 13f filings and can confirm. Retail owns 2/3 of $GME

[Ryan Cohen @ryancohen]

Kamala 2069

[Susanne Trimbath PhD @SusanneTrimbath]

Final Friday Post
ICYMI:
My take on the Black Hole at the center of Global Capital Markets.

[Susanne Trimbath PhD @SusanneTrimbath]

NSCC claims SEC doesn't "have jurisdiction to review measures applied as risk controls to address concerns about [members'] ability to meet obligations.” Risk-management standards authorized by [NSCC] rules, SEC cannot “challenge [DTCC’s] authority”. https://t.co/yqhYOrphx8

[WhiteRabbit741 🇺🇸 @WRabbit741]

Controversy swirling around potential insider and company buybacks! Is RC waiting for the perfect bottom to accumulate more? And what if GME hits $9-$10? Could that trigger GameStop's share buybacks with their whopping $101 million authorization? Share your thoughts! $GME #GME #Investing

[Susanne Trimbath PhD @SusanneTrimbath]

If bad policy decisions are always rational, motivated by self-interest or obtaining favors, we must conclude policymakers are dishonest, protecting their own interest rather than the public interest. Incompetence has no rational explanation. Read here: https://t.co/yvCTVkp0W3