#FreeSpeechMonday and Deplatforming Amerika
Wouldn’t it be interesting if say Monday the futures for Apple, Amazon, Google and Twitter suddenly had market whiplash?
The technology conglomerates in recent days have acted exclusively like editorial outlets. They have committed direct fiduciary negligence against their stock holders. And they seem to have forgotten that, to at least some degree, the people they are mistreating now are also the ones that helped drive their success on the Nasdaq this year.
In fact, in a year when the average American had great economic success last January and February—many of us had to scrap and claw for most of the rest of the year to get to even. Sadly, there remain many who have not gotten back to square one.
But not so for Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and “Jack.” Nope. For these ringwraiths there would come no sacrifice, just a lot of money and a record year. Add Zuckerberg to the mix and these companies kept the Nasdaq above water almost all by themselves for 2020.
Power corrupts though, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Big Tech seems to believe that they are above us minions. They pour money into elections—wrongfully attached to conditions on how the election is carried out. When the plebs speak up, they turn a deaf ear. No one holds them accountable.
You certainly can’t have a president in office who calls attention to all that they are going to rig all of life against a consumer—much less a little election engineering. And at the first sign that “their people” are poised to have unchecked power—even for only two years—the five of you shred the Constitution, attack the one who’s kept things honest, and put a knife to the throat of the everyday American.
What America has turned into—Amerika—in the last 72 hours resembles the technological equivalent of Cuba, China, and the old Soviet Union.
Most recently when Venezuela was finally able to get the people just hooked long enough on government dependency Chavez/Maduro et al figured out ways to keep it from ever returning it to the hands of the people.
Amerika will be harder to control because of Ameri-c-ans. Close to 80 million believe that the past pair of elections weren’t anything close to fair, free or transparent. And all 80 million condemned the 58 people arrested who tore up our beloved Capitol this week.
Rumor has it that even that big tax hikes are on the way. As such tech stock may not be all that attractive—especially if Joe Biden keeps his word to print up to $10 trillion additional paper dollars this year.
But make no mistake, as shareholders—either independently or through our 401k mutual funds—we are not required to keep faith in companies that willfully take actions that undermine our fiscal good.
One smallish Twitter account that got deplatformed this week with only 150k followers had driven 210 million impressions for them in the final 60 days of 2020. Rush Limbaugh’s platform was six times that size. Add Levin, Team Trump, Don Jr, Lou Dobbs, dozens more and even the two POTUS accounts and you’re looking at billions of impressions, the traffic that goes with them, and hence the profitability.
Not only that you are essentially giving your competitors that “value” as well.
It’s a great wager to be sure, but what if shareholders suddenly realize that they don’t have to put up with activist CEOs who appear to be working counter to the interest of their own fiduciary obligations?
Wouldn’t putting that money even into the two commodities (gold/silver) that beat the Nasdaq in 2020 make more sense?
So what if Monday rolled around and the great #FreeSpeechSellOff went down? What if the five headless horsemen suddenly were reminded that they aren’t free to rid the earth of opinions they simply don’t care for?
What if...
