I don't know what to do with my life. My local organizing is in limbo and I'm not sure I want to keep doing it for several reasons. I don't have a job, lost mine when my campaign work officially ended on 12/1. I used to write code for a living but really don't want to go back into it. It's not what I want to do for a living. Also....
Capitalism is dumb. Really really stupid. I hate how there are so many people busting their butts working in Amazon warehouses or meat packing plants, or those kids mining rare metals in Africa, making scraps and actually making all of these modern Capitalist treats possible. And then there's people who are clicking a few buttons on a stock broker app and pulling in thousands of dollars just like that!
Actually working for an honest wage feels like a scam at this point. I get to be pushed around, mentally distressed (hooray Autism) and eventually stressed out to the point of burning out for whatever wage I "agree" to take (aka whatever "the market" says I'm worth). OR I can turn the trading I'm doing into a "system" and hone it to a point where I can pull in $300-500 per day making trades on the market.
I'm not even talking about a fancy trading strategy with a bunch of indicators or other nonsense. I'm just scalping SPY, buying Call or Put options at a certain point and selling them when they go up in price by 20 cents. 25 contracts x .20 profit / share / contract = $500 - $25 in broker fees = $475. In theory I could run this every day and be in and out of my trade within minutes. The full strategy has risk management rules and then the "hard part" is picking the right entry point for each trade.
I'll be running a back test on this simple plan but I know from actually doing it on a smaller scale that it works. It's so dumb how I can make (and lose) a month's rent on a single trade.
It's disgusting. On one hand I am glad I have this "gift" of hyper-focus so that I can dig into topics like day trading and figure it out. OTOH there's a lot of jealousy over people who I see out and about as "normal" and knowing I'm not going to be them. Part of me wishes I could just deal with a 9-5 job like most people and maybe empty my mind of Politics. I'd be less informed but maybe happier?
The other thing that bothers me is that Capitalism is pushing me towards this route. I'd rather be spending my time learning how to make music, mixing with the gear I have, reading some of these theory and history books that are piling up, or doing something actually good for society. However I need money to survive and after going through plenty of really bad programming jobs I guess I'd rather try to make money on my own. So here I am, becoming the financial equivalent of a river leech, sucking some blood from my host each day, and those hosts being parasites themselves, those stock prices rising from stealing the labor value of everyone possible, charging as much as possible, screwing over everyone as much as they can get away with.
and GME was the thing that got me to stop thinking about doing it and start actually trading.