So, it turns out that the son of one of the founders of GameStop has been on r/wallstreetbets this whole time, watching the saga unfold. If you need a primer on what exactly we're talking about here, go read our coverage - we'll wait.
Ben Kusin, the Redditor in question, is one of the sons of Gary Kusin, the 69-year old founder of Babbage's, the store that would later be bought by Barnes and Noble in 1999, and renamed to GameStop. Kusin resigned as President in 1995, after the company merged with Software, Inc. Of course, that means that Kusin doesn't actually own GameStop any more, although he's probably rolling in enough dough that it doesn't really matter.
"I'm much more a spectator that I am participant," he said to CNBC in an interview. "I just grabbed some popcorn."
The elder Kusin also praised r/wallstreetbets for taking on the big boys, calling it "a little bit of an honor" that his company was chosen to be the stick with which the Reddit investors are beating Wall Street. "It's a good versus evil kind of battle," said the younger Kusin, and though he hasn't participated himself, saying that it would be "almost sacrilegious", his wife bought a single share. She's up $50, and refuses to sell. Stay strong, Mrs Kusin!
Kusin did not tell CNBC what his Reddit handle was, preferring the "beauty in anonymity" that Reddit affords. He says that he's "happy to just be another Redditor in the never-ending quest for tendies", referencing the r/wallstreetbets meme of referring to profits as "tendies", short for "chicken tenders", a term that originates from 4Chan fiction about... listen, just check out the explanation, or we'll be here all day.
Reddit investors are, of course, taking Kusin's quote about grabbing popcorn to mean that he's promoting buying shares in AMC, the cinema giant that's another of Reddit's targets. He's probably not, but, you know, stonks, right?
Are you tired of the GameStop stories, or are you grabbing popcorn and enjoying the show, too? Let us know in the comments.
[source cnbc.com]
Comments 27
Stocks!!🚀🚀
Idk what more to say
Stocks or stock(ings)?
Sadly it's just a matter of time before GameStop goes bankrupt.
"Power to the players".
Stonks forever
They just really like the stock!
GameStop are laughably dreadful but it’s amazing that finally people are standing up to this hedge-fund garbage and beating them at their own game.
Can we give PlayNTrade a bunch of money next? But this time they keep it?
Please, they are my only provider of retro stuff in a 200 mile radius of me
@Bizaster those “snobby billionaires” are the only reason the economy is preforming as well as it is
They created most of the thing you use on your daily life and push innovation, pay most of the taxes (the top 1% pay above 30% of all taxes, I think 37% but not sure) and give billions to charity in a lot of cases
Of course some of them are just snobby, but billionaires and rich people are essential
@Tantani Most corporations are run by career executives, not producers or inventors.
They didn't do it for Game Stop. They did it to spite greedy hedgefund scum who profit from failed businesses and lost jobs.
@Tantani, name one billionaire short seller who has created or invented anything people use or possess in their daily lives other than misery and unemployment.
@doctorhino I intentionally presented several different thing about them cause not every trait is true to all of them
@iulis84 people who inherit their wealth are different story, I mostly talk about self made billionaires
And believe me I know a lot about economics
The big guys are moving everything, the big guys are moving game stop, the the people on Reddit didn’t actually move GME stock to much, millionaires and billionaires who saw it as opportunities to make money jumped in and did the heavy lifting, and took the massive gains
You are right about educated people, but we are not talking school and university kind of education
@doctorhino yes, because they didn’t take advantage of the situation, they needed to take the opportunity and raise money by selling some shares
It could have save the business
@Tantani Here are the 3 things you mentioned. all of them are hardly ever true. Most billionaires don't have liquid income, they invest it in companies. So no, they don't pay a true income tax amount of over 30%.
The only person who might have given billions to charity is bill gates, because how many billionaires give billions away?
1. They created most of the thing you use on your daily life and push innovation
2. pay most of the taxes (the top 1% pay above 30% of all taxes, I think 37% but not sure)
3. give billions to charity
@Tantani Big business charity almost always exists to avoid taxes.
Gonna go get a master chief figure from GameStop so you can say I’m contributing!
@doctorhino in 2017, the top 1% in the US payed 38.5% of the taxes in the country
The bottom 90% payed 29.9%
Jeff Bezos donated 10B$ In 2020 to fight climate change
Warren buffet: 14 billion dollar between 2014-2018
Michel Blumberg- 3B in 5 years
Elon musk- promised to donate half of his wealth and donate a lot of money to many different causes
You get the point.... (yes I used the best known examples but there are many more)
And the billionaires are the ones who run the investment companies, the food chains an d super market chains and tech companies and any other type of big company that provide millions of jobs and supporting new startups (to be fair also killing companions)
I am not saying that billionaires are good peoples, some of them are, others really not, but in a capitalism driven economy, they will always be there, and they are playing an important role
@iulis84 lol yeah I know this one
But this is not the real difference between a regular average joe to the rich people
The real difference is the mindset, and courage, money and assets are only byproduct
Sounds like a cool guy, shame he isn't still running the business.
Maybe he's blending in here in the comments right now just like on Reddit... Who wants to help me sus out the impostor among us?
@Tantani Don't fool yourself, giving money away pretax from a corporation is much different than donating out of already taxed and fully liquid assets.
The workers who make their companies a success deserve just as much credit for that money being donated.
"🚀" is to symbolize "to the moon!"
"🤚💎" is to symbolize "strong hands", to "hold the line"
@Not_Soos what if it's me
Dude needs to come back into the game and open up a shop called Lovelace's.
Even the Australian broadcasting corporation used the stonks meme when covering this...
Ahhhh screwing over Wallstreet and the Elite one of the few things in the world that unites both the Left and the Right.
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