Steve Cohen's Twitter account was fun while it lasted, but I can't say that I'm too sorry to see it go. I've been on Twitter since 2012, but I never was consistently active on the platform until I started blogging again last spring. Before that, I used to spend most of my Twitter time following either politics or the Mets. Both of those topics can get pretty emotional, so I learned long ago to take a pause when I felt myself being sucked in too deeply. And I'm not important enough to be a real target of the ugliness that runs deeply through much of social media.
Steve Cohen didn't say he was leaving the platform for good, but I'd be kind of surprised to see him back, His official statement, per Mack's Mets:
"I’ve really enjoyed the back and forth with Mets fans on Twitter which was unfortunately overtaken this week by misinformation unrelated to the Mets that led to our family getting personal threats. So I’m going to take a break for now. We have other ways to listen to your suggestions and remain committed to doing that. I love our team, this community, and our fans, who are the best in baseball. Bottom line is that this week’s events in no way affect our resources and drive to put a championship team on the field. #LGM!"
By the way, I believe him that the losses that his firm endured due to their investment in another hedge fund won't affect his spending on the Mets. It was a lot of money, but he still has much more money, and taking some big losses at times is part of the game that people like Cohen play so well.
I'm not a big fan of the system that is rigged to mostly help extremely wealthy people get wealthier. The stock market has turned into an institution where wild, unfunded bets are a vehicle for guys like Gabriel Plotkin of Melvin Capital to make a fortune betting against a company like GameStop. These "shorts" aren't of any benefit to the real economy where most of us are trying to get by. I'm not rooting against Cohen, of course, but I don't feel sorry for the beating his former employee Plotkin took, and I'm not sorry that Cohen's investment in Plotkin's fund took a big hit. You win some, you lose some.
I don't feel sorry for these companies, either. Most publicly traded companies are more interested in propping up their share values and paying exorbitant salaries to their top execs than they are in doing right by their normal employees and the country in general.
Seriously, it's hard to tell the bad guys from the good guys in this scenario. The whole ongoing GameStop story is not a black and white issue. Hap tip to Patrick Glynn at Metsmerized Online for his link to an explainer by Alexis Goldstein which really helped me to understand this complicated drama a lot better. Well worth your time if your interested.
I guess I'm supposed to feel sorry for the investors who pumped up GameStop stock in order to stick it to Plotkin and others shorting the stock, but I don't see them as heroes, either. As Ms. Goldstein pointed out, "GameStop madness isn't David vs Goliath. It's Goliath vs. Goliath, with David as a fig leaf." I'm not rooting for or against these investors who banded together to try to game the system for themselves. I'm definitely not rooting for the hedge fund guys, not even the one who owns my team. I'm rooting for a system that takes the toys away from these folks and gives us an economy that works better for those of us who could care less about these gamblers and their extravagant plays.
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