The Marshmallow Market
A Short Apocalyptic Novella
In this story two friends on opposite sides of the political spectrum have a conversation where one reveals his conspiracy theory behind the stock market and explains how the world will end.
I hope you enjoy the discussion.
Riggly walked into the dim pub and waited for his eyes to adjust to the lighting. It was one on a Sunday and his friend Will had invited him to grab some drinks at Bush’s Bar while they watched the football. He wore jeans and a grey hoodie over his broad six foot two frame, but he remembered to bring his baseball cap with the appropriate NFL logo for the game today. Many of the bar patrons wore matching hats to his.
“Hey Riggs!”
Riggly scanned the bar in the direction of the voice and saw his disheveled childhood friend waving in a booth by himself, wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey and nursing a half finished pint. The smaller man was hunched over his pint with his phone lying face up next to it, recently scrolled. Riggly waved back and pointed to the bar to which Will gestured his support.
“Get yourself a drink buddy,” Will mumbled as he watched the newcomer approach the counter and address the good-looking bartender. Will assumed the looks helped with the tips. He’d never been much of a looker himself.
A pair of men entered wearing sunglasses and Steelers jerseys so Will quickly patted his hip to make sure he had his weapon. He’d been politically outspoken on social media recently and after receiving a few death threats, his paranoia had insisted on bringing protection wherever he went. You just couldn’t be too careful these days.
When Riggly was served he carefully carried his beverage to the booth and took a seat opposite Will. Despite his best efforts, the foamy beer cascaded down the sides of the glass and pooled gently on the metal table.
“Hey man, how’s it going?”
“I’m all right, not totally terrible,” Will replied, “Got here just in time, the game’s about to start.”
“Yeah I know, damn traffic.”
As if on cue, the television screens behind the bar all began blaring the opening theme to the sporting event and several hatted heads swiveled, preparing to worship at the alter of modern day Demi-gods. The bartender muted it.
Riggly took a sip of his beer and savored the refreshing bitter taste.
“So how’ve you been man?”
Will stared at the screen for a moment, watching as the national anthem was performed in silence.
“What a great metaphor for the strangled voice of America these days,” he smirked sarcastically.
Riggly kept quiet, attempting to avoid getting into a political spat while he waited for his friend’s actual response.
“I’ve been better honestly,” Will finally shrugged, sipping on his dwindling beverage and allowing a trickle of beer to meander along his pointed chin.
“Oh yeah? What’s up?”
“Nah, it’s nothing man. Stocks. Society. Long story.”
“We’re here for three hours,” Riggly persisted, pointing to the game on the tv screen, “What’s up?”
Maybe politics would be unavoidable today.
Riggly missed the days when he and Will could just hang out and shoot the shit, but ever since 2015 all they did when they got together was complain in brief passive aggressive ways about the other’s politics. They had to focus on sports just to have something to talk about that wasn’t divisive.
“Lost some money in the stock market this week, last week,” Will continued watching the screen, avoiding eye contact, “Like a lot actually.”
“How much is a lot?”
“Maybe $50k.”
“Jesus dude, I thought I read that the stock market hit all time highs this week?”
“That’s correct,” Will said sardonically as he sipped on his beer again and replenished the chin river, “And last week too.”
“So what happened?”
Will finally brought his lazy gaze away from the tv, slowly scanning the patrons of the bar until his sight rested on his friend across the table.
“It shouldn’t have,” he said simply.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s corruption man,” Will explained, “Pure and simple. We are a shitty corrupt country and we’re going to hell.”
“Hell?” Riggly chuckled with surprise, “Since when did you ever talk like this?”
“It’s a metaphor,” Will shrugged, “Hell on Earth, I guess.”
“How come?”
“Everything man, everything. It’s all wrong. We’re all going down man, that piece of shit is going to drag this country to its doom. The whole world is gonna end.”
“The president?” Riggly looked around uncomfortably before adopting a quieter tone, “Didn’t you vote for him?”
“Yeah,” Will muttered with irritation, “Three times.”
“And now you’re not happy?”
“No, I’m not,” Will stretched absent-mindedly and picked up his pint glass, “He was different before. He’s changed. He lied to us. It’s over. America’s over.”
“Everyone told you he was lying to you,” Riggly pointed out, “You called it fake news. So the world’s over now because you lost some money in stocks?”
“I didn’t just lose money man, it was stolen from me, by corruption. And I have to pay taxes on that shit now. I have to pay taxes on capital gains I never really had. Where am I gonna find 10-15K?”
Riggly looked absently around the bar. A latino couple were enjoying what looked like cocktails at a booth, their happy faces a sign of their attraction to each other. There was a dark haired twenty-something girl with her head down, scrolling her mobile phone. There were a couple of buddies in steelers jerseys sitting at the bar, laughing at something. As he appraised his fellow customers he couldn’t help but feel he might be having a better time at any other table in the joint.
“I don’t know,” Riggly replied unhelpfully, “Stocks are dangerous.”
“Not when you know what you’re doing,” Will responded in annoyance.
“And you know what you’re doing?” Riggly asked, “How’d you lose the money then?”
“I told you, it was stolen from me. The market doesn’t make sense right now.”
“Does it ever?”
“It’s not just the stocks man, it’s what it means. It’s about everything.”
“OK, well, explain it to me. I don’t know stocks. I give all that over to my guy Travis, you remember Travis right?”
“Yeah I remember Travis,” Will took another sip, “How’s Travis doing?”
“He’s doing good,” Riggly observed his friend quietly for a moment, “Great actually. Are you going to tell me what this is all about dude? Are you asking for money? Just talk to me.”
Will’s grey eyes remained fixed on the screen but a look of disdain smeared his face.
“Is that…?”
Riggly turned saw that one of the animations chosen by the National Football League to convey some sporting statistics looked glossy and unfinished. He thought it looked a little ugly.
“Is that AI?” Riggly asked.
“Looks like it,” Will muttered bitterly, seizing his glass and draining what was left before banging it purposefully on the table, “That’s why, right there.”
“That’s what?” Riggly asked looking back to his friend.
Will stood and leant on the table, pointing at the tv.
“That’s where my money went. Fucking fraudulent AI garbage!”
A nearby table shushed him and Will sat back down.
“Huh?”
“That right there is why America is going to fail,” he hissed, “Everyone and their grandmas is using AI these days.”
“What’s wrong with AI?” Riggly asked playfully, “Since when were you so anti-technology?”
“I didn’t think I would be, but I also didn’t expect to be the only one to see the truth,” Will sighed.
“You’re the only one to see the truth?” Riggly grinned, “What truth?”
“The end of the world.”
“You keep saying that dude,” Riggly sighed, “Why don’t you explain it to me rather than just repeating yourself like an insane person.”
“I need another drink first,” Will stood again and took his empty glass, “Give me a second.”
Riggly watched his friend walk to the bar and get another beer. His eyes wandered to the screen and the game. When his companion returned, Will took a sip and cleared his throat.
“OK, you really want to know what’s going on?” he asked.
“Yeah man,” Riggly assured him with a smirk, “Let me see the truth. Open my eyes.”
“It’s gonna be like that meme from A Clockwork Orange, you know where he’s got the eye clamps on?”
“I get the reference,” Riggly was tiring of the build-up, “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Sure,” Will sat in silence for nearly a minute before he moved again, “What do you know about the Marshmallow Test?”
“That psychological experiment from the 80s with kids? They were measuring self control or something right?”
“It was in the 70s, and bingo,” Will shot Riggly with a finger-gun, “The test put a kid in a room with a candy, and they were told they could eat the candy now, but the experimenter was going to leave the room and come back, and if the kid waited until they got back they could have two candies instead of one.”
“Right,” Riggly confirmed, “And most of the kids went for the one candy right?”
“Not exactly,” Will countered, “But what they learned was that the kids who waited and got two candies tended to do better on average than those who didn’t.”
“I remember that,” Riggly adjusted in his seat and leant forward on the table, “They got better jobs or something?”
“They did better across the board,” Will corrected condescendingly, “They had better jobs, they made more money, they raised better kids and they were on average more successful than their peers in almost every way. The experimenters kept tabs on the kids and watched how they lived and got all of this data.”
“Imagine being one of the kids who waited for two candies and fell below average in everything,” Riggly mused, “That’s gotta suck.”
“That’s averages for ya,” Will replied, “They don’t apply to everyone the same. But for the most part, the kids who waited for two candies showed that discipline is a key factor in success. The argument is about short term gratification vs long term gains. That’s what the test was testing for.”
“What, like putting off the immediate pleasure of one candy in exchange for two later on?”
“Right,” Will took a swig, “Self control. That ability, I feel, is the key to humanity. I think if we master that we master it all.”
The bar cheered as the Pittsburgh Steelers scored a field goal against the Houston Texans. Will and Riggly watched the screens as the players celebrated taking the lead in their playoff game.
3-0 to the Steelers.
“So what does that have to do with stocks?”
“Everything,” Will explained, “The stock market is one big marshmallow test. You don’t spend your money now or enjoy it, you put the one candy into the market and you get two candies later on, you see?”
“I see.”
“That’s how you make money. The big bucks. That’s all President Dump cares about anyways, him and his billionaire backers. They only care about money.”
“President Dump?” Riggly found it incredible that he was hearing this from Will, one of the loudest supporters of the Republican president he had ever met, “What caused this turn around? Is it the ICE shootings?”
“Nah,” Will said casually, “Those guys are just doing their jobs. Gotta get those illegals off the streets, man. People should know not to get in their way.”
“I hate that term, please don’t use it man,” Riggly sighed.
“Illegals?” Will asked with a mixture of surprise and vindictiveness, “That’s what they are. You come here illegally and you’re an illegal.”
“I don’t like it. It reminds me of how the Nazis referred to Jews,” Riggly explained, “Except anybody can’t be jewish, but technically anybody can break the law and become an illegal.”
“That’s not what it means,” Will argued, losing interest, “It’s just for immigrants.”
Riggly, as always, decided not to provide his own views on the matter. Will didn’t know and didn’t care for his friend’s “version” of the truth. He had his information sources and his perspective, anything that went against them was not something he put much weight in.
“How much do you know about stocks?” Will pivoted.
“The basics I guess, I’ve read a little,” Riggly shrugged.
“I gave you a book I think. I’ll make this real quick. You have public and private companies right?”
“Yeah I know that. Private companies are private, public companies you can invest in through the stock market.”
“Perfect. One of the differences is that a public company has all of their financials available to the public, and private companies don’t. When a company goes public, they basically make a deal with the bank, the bank loans them money, then they put their shares on the market in an Initial Public Offering , or IPO.
“Shares, you know shares, they’re just fractions of a company. So after you do that a company goes from private to public and everyone can buy the shares and own some of the company. Investors will look at the company’s financials; the debt, the income, the assets, yada yada, and they’ll decide whether they think the company will be worth more in the future.
“That’s the key to all of this by the way. Shares are not a representation of a company’s current state, but what investors think it will be worth in the future. It’s a big marshmallow test you see?”
“Ok, I see what you did there,” Riggly smiled.
“All right, so how much do you know about market cycles?” Will drank some drink.
“In the stock market?” Riggly considered his understanding, “I read that book you gave me; Mastering the Market Cycle by something Howard?”
“Howard Marks, yeah that’s a good start.”
“And the one by Bogle, Common Sense investing or something?”
“OK, that’s fine,” Will took another swig as his new beer already neared its end, “So you know that the stock market runs in cycles. It goes up and then it comes down, it goes up and comes down. These things can take years to play out.”
“Right.”
“And when it comes down hard, like really hard and really fast we call that a recession.”
“I thought a recession was two quarters of negative GDP growth?”
“Potato, potato,” Will waved the question away as he leaned on the table, “Real recessions are the big things, the massive drops that scare you shitless. And we need them, right? If we didn’t have recessions everything would fail over time. It’s all greed and fear.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. We tend to have a recession every ten, fifteen years. Why do you think that is?”
“No clue”
“It’s because that’s how long it takes for the market to forget. Think about it. Think about the 2008 recession for example. Between then and now, old investors who experienced it are dying, and new investors who never felt that fear are joining the market. Gradually enough time passes that the new investors coming into the market outnumber the ones who remember first hand what was going on in 2008.
“Think about all of the kids who were born in 2000 and running up to that ‘08 recession, they wouldn’t have a clue what it was really like, from the financial side I mean. But suddenly it’s 2018, and that kid who was only ten when the world crashed last time, is now twenty and is being hired by an investment firm to trade their assets for them.”
“I see,” Riggly said, “So you think the reason the recession cycle is the way it is because that’s the amount of time it takes for the market to lose the experience of the previous recession or something? Like, a lack of recessions will cause a recession?”
“Kind of,” Will confirmed, “I think that’s the amount of time it takes to dilute the market memory you could say. There are enough people trading the market now who didn’t learn any hard lessons from the last recession, so they don’t know good precautions to deal with the next one.
“This means they might have riskier positions, lack of protections, use of leverage and whatnot. And if you’re cautious about those things that shouldn’t be a problem, but then why would you be cautious when everything has just gone up in price for the last ten years, you know? You could almost put your money in anything and be a winner. So recessions, I think, are mainly caused by people being careless about the last one.”
“OK, I think I get it,” Riggly offered, “We’re talking psychology now? Human psychology?”
“Right, the whole market is just identifying predictable patterns in human behavior and taking advantage of them for monetary gain.”
“And the patterns are…?”
“Greed and fear. I told you. And greed and fear are on one end of the self control spectrum.”
“What’s on the other?”
“Self control. Marshmallow test, remember? When you give in to the greed of wanting money fast, or you get scared of losing money or missing out on profits, you give up your control of the situation. These emotions will get you into bad trades and out of good trades. The best way to trade the market is to come up with a strict plan and stick to that plan, it takes all of the emotion out of the trading.”
“OK, is that what happened to you? You didn’t have a plan?”
Riggly had made it halfway through his beer. The Pittsburg Steelers football team had made it halfway across the football pitch on their latest drive and were within field goal range again. The forward march of time progresses onwards.
“No, let me finish,” Will said with mild irritation, “It’s about self control. The guys that make millions in the market just buy and hold for years and years and years. They put off the short term gratification of being greedy for immediate gains or being fearful of losing profits in the short term, and they lean into the long term investment strategy that’ll predictably pay off over time.”
“Right, marshmallow test. And you don’t have to pay capital gains taxes if you hold for over a year right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“So why doesn’t everyone do that? If it’s so easy to just buy and hold and it’s better for taxes?”
“Well two reasons I guess,” Will answered thoughtfully, “The first would be short term gratification. Marshmallow test and whatnot.”
“And the second?” Riggly asked while Will enjoyed his beverage.
“That’s a question of faith.”
“Faith?”
“Yeah,” Will explained, “I mean you can find the perfect company with a great balance sheet, great numbers, looks like it’ll grow, and then the CEO gets murdered or something and it all falls apart.”
“I see, right. Like your stock isn’t going to go up if an asteroid kills half of the planet?”
“Exactly. Just because the market goes up 11% per year on average doesn’t mean it’s gonna be doing that for the time that you have your money in it. That’s just an average. Look at Japan. Japan had a market bubble back in the 80s, the market crashed and it only just got back to the same levels it was back then. Here, look at this.”
Will pulled his phone out and quickly pulled up a chart on screen which he showed to Riggly.
(Image credit: Google Inc.)
“Look at that! Look at how it bombs at the beginning of the nineties. If you had bought in during 1990 or ’91, you lost everything, look how long it took to get back to that same level. That’s what, 30 years of waiting just to get back to where you bought in? So it takes an element of faith and some good luck to invest for that long, you need to believe that the experimenter is gonna come back with a second candy, you feel me?
“You never know how long a recession could last, it could be four years like the ‘08 crash, it could be thirty years like Japan’s market. So when people think a recession is coming, if they’re being risk averse they’ll take some if not most of their money out of the market because they don’t know how long it’ll be until they can get it back, if they can even get it back.
“Right,” Riggly nodded.
“And that’s a big deal,” Will continued, “When the market crashes people are more careful where they put their money, they put more work into finding good companies that they can trust going forward. Ones that they can have faith will grow. This means that recessions, while painful, provide a kind of cleansing for the stock market. Because people don’t like losing money.
“So when the recession hits, all of the corrupt decisions like hiring friends who aren’t qualified, all of the bad investments, all of the mismanagement of money and reckless trading, these things all get punished. It’s like evolution but it keeps correcting for financial efficiency rather than anything else.
“A company that hires the best candidates and is careful with the way they spend their money has a much better chance of surviving a recession than one where the owner’s kid has a high paying job and does nothing useful, you know? Not always. Again, luck and faith are important parts here, but the better a company is with its financials the better chance they have of making it out the other side.
“People don’t think twice when everything is going good, but when a recession hits and people are hurting, they want to know why. They get mad and look a little closer only to find out that the company they gave their investment to is spending money on stuff that doesn’t help the company grow.”
“Yeah, I’d be pissed if I invested in a company and found out that money went to buying a new car for the CEO’s kid.”
“Exactly,” Will agreed, “So far we’ve covered that the share price of a company is a prediction of its future success, and also that we need recessions to remove market inefficiencies and corruption. Right?”
“Sure.” Riggly finished his beer and when Will noticed, he quickly downed what remained of his own.
“You want another?”
“If you’re offering, I’m not gonna say no.”
Riggly slid his glass over to Will with a soft smile, who collected it and stood up quickly, leaning on the booth bench for support when he lost his balance.
“Easy there,” Riggly teased while his friend departed to the bar once again, “You gotta watch out for that gravity man, it’s always trying to bring us down!”
As Will purchased refills, Riggly couldn’t help wonder what had happened to his friend’s politics.
Will was the kind of person that unfortunately conflated politics with sports, and believed that loyalty to a party was something honorable. He’d been a life-long Republican and proud of it.
Riggly on the other hand had studied sociology in college and understood that loyalty to political parties was damaging to a nation’s progress. If the political parties don’t have to compete for voters because they already have secured bases of loyal supporters, then they simply don’t have as much pressure to evolve and improve which often leads to political stagnation. They begin to pander to their bases more and more and in the end political extremes tended to form.
Will took every opportunity to reveal how much he hated the Democratic elite, although Riggly knew most of what he said were unconfirmed conspiracies that Will had heard from the radio or picked up from fellow Republicans. He remembered the time Will was hysterical about a school allowing a child that identified as a cat to bring a litter box to class with them so they could go to the bathroom in it. He thought it was madness, a breaking down of the social fabric.
It turned out the story had been entirely made up by a student who was playing a prank on their grandfather.
The Republican media continued to propel the story nationwide once the truth was revealed in order to further the divide between people who source their information accurately and those who don’t, and Will was one of the latter.
When people believe those outside of their group are insane or malicious, it is easier to ignore their suffering. The modern media relied on rage-baiting headlines as their business model to garner more attention but when people get enraged and emotional they don’t think as clearly about what they read, allowing the easy spread of disinformation.
Riggly wondered what on Earth could have happened to make his friend change his tune on the once unimpeachable president. The strategy of claiming everything as “fake news” seemed impossible to penetrate with the truth.
“Started a tab,” Will said with a grin when he returned, “Just wave at the bartender and he’ll bring more.”
He set the two full pint glasses down and slid one across the metal table to his friend. Foam sloshed in its wake leaving a slug-like trail of beer on the table’s shiny silver surface.
“You started a tab?” Riggly asked, “I thought you just lost a bunch of money?
Will sat down and glowered at his friend.
“There you go, perfect example of the Marshmallow test. I should be saving my money to deal with my losses, but instead I am spending it on short term gratification to drown my sorrows despite the bleak long term consequences. Now you see. It’s everything, man.”
Riggly rolled his eyes and smiled. The first quarter of the game ended without any more scoring.
3-0 to the Steelers.
“OK, so where were we?” Will asked after taking a sip of his beer and smacking his lips. He wiped the grizzled mustache that came as part of his unshaven face and then cleaned his hand on the jersey he was wearing.
“Stocks represent the future value of a company and we need recessions to wash the trash out of the market every decade or so. AI is going to end the world or something.”
“Right,” Will contemplated for a minute where he wanted to go with the conversation next, “Yeah, yeah, OK. So recessions, they hurt but we need them. It’s like eating your vegetables I guess. And the last real recession we had was the Dotcom crash back in 2000.”
“What about in 2008?”
“Let me explain, right?” Will countered, “I’m getting there. First 2000. The turn of the millennia, and the internet just got invented like ten years before. So all these companies start developing stuff with the internet, they set up websites, they promise investors the moon. Now, the internet is still young. No one knows how to make money with this thing. So people are just dumping money into stupid companies like PETS.COM and other stuff that are just never going to be profitable. They have no path to profitability, right?
“But investors are just thinking about the future. They’re being greedy and saying to each other: Imagine how much this company will be worth in the future, and they were just throwing their money at these terrible investments. Long story short, the earnings start coming out of these companies and they are just burning through cash with no profits and people panic.
“Suddenly everyone wants out, no one wants to be the person holding worthless shares instead of cash you feel me? Shares only have value if you can sell them to somebody, but cash is always king. So there’s a stampede, just like a run on the banks. It’s the same exact thing. Everyone wants to get their money out fast because if you buy the shares at $100, and everyone else sells theirs, when you go to sell yours they’ll be worthless, and no one’ll be there to buy them from you. You lose all your money.”
“I see,” Riggly said after a sip, “So basically as soon as people think the party is over everyone runs for the door?”
“Yeah, but the door is only so big and only the people who get out first get out with their money intact. Everyone that gets out later is a loser. The later you get out, the bigger the loser.”
“Can’t you just hold though?” Riggly asked, “I see that all over the internet these days. Buy the dip or something.”
“I’m getting there,” Will input impatiently, “Remember Japan dude? Can you hold for thirty years? Anyone over the age of thirty probably dies before they see the end of that tunnel. That tunnel is dark as hell, you need a bunch of faith to get through that. And if you bought in at the top of the Dotcom bubble, not only was the company you bought probably going bankrupt, which means your money is gone anyways, but even if you had just bought the SPY and held you wouldn’t have made your money back until 2007. That’s seven years, just to break even again. ”
“SPY?” Riggly asked.
Will smirked briefly because he was more informed than his friend and took the time to sip on his beer before explaining.
“SPY. It’s the S&P 500 ETF. An ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund, it’s just like a basket of shares. You take shares from the biggest 500 companies and you bundle them all together and they call it SPY. The SPY is basically a way to gauge the value of the entire market. It’s got shares from companies in every sector basically. When you said a recession is two quarters of negative growth? That means two quarters of the SPY going down pretty much.”
“OK,” Riggly said uncertainly, “I think I’m following you.”
He would have to double check all of this when he got home.
“I told you it was a long story man,” Will reminded his friend, “Just think of SPY as the U.S. stock market. When I say SPY is at 330 or 450, that’s a price measure for the economy OK?”
“Sure.”
“Here,” he pivoted, “Japan’s market is called the Nikkei, right? The chart I showed you was for that. The companies in the Nikkei index are different from the companies in the SPY, so if you wanted to invest in the Japanese economy you would buy shares of the Nikkei, but the SPY is for America. You see?”
“Yeah OK, so like, if America was a company the SPY would be the shares for it?”
“Pretty much,” Will praised, “It’s like an averaging of value made from all the companies. If you bought a company in 2000, the company might go bankrupt and your money goes to zero, but if you bought into the SPY in 2000, there’s a bunch of different companies in there. The whole country isn’t going to go to zero, so you have more protection, you see?”
“I see,” Riggly sipped on his beverage, “So AI…?”
“I’m getting there, Riggs,” Will said with annoyance, “Just give me a sec, I said it was a long story.” He picked up his beer and drank a third, seemingly to make up for what he hadn’t consumed while talking.
“Right, right,” Riggly acknowledged, “Take your time.”
He looked to the tv screens again to see that the Houston Texans were close to scoring. He didn’t like the look of that. The dark haired girl scrolling her phone was finally joined by a similarly aged friend and for the first time, Riggly saw her face when she looked up. She was pretty enough, not that she cared what some old guy at the bar thought.
“OK,” Will continued when ready, “So the Dotcom crash was the last real stock market crash, and you can see how it happened, companies pretending to understand new technology and lying to investors about profitability.”
“Sure,” Riggly had a feeling he knew where his friend was going now, “And you’re comparing that crash to the AI situation now?”
“Yeah.”
“But what about 2008?”
“Do you remember what happened back in 2008?”
“The banks were giving mortgages to people who were broke or something?”
“The banks were not only giving mortgages to people who were broke, but they were then bundling those mortgages into investment vehicles and selling them to investors. People would buy shares in a fund filled with bad mortgages.”
“You’re losing me bro,” Riggly said sipping his beer.
He’d almost caught up with Will, although he knew his friend had been drinking before he arrived. How many beers he’d had was impossible to tell but Will was far too animated in the conversation to be on Riggly’s level of sober.
“Right, right,” Will realized, “Just go with what you said. The banks were giving out bad mortgages right? Corruption.”
“OK.”
“But the government bailed them out. You remember that? The government gave the banks a lot of money to prevent them from going under because it would have been detrimental to America’s future. The recession we would have seen would have been insane compared to what we actually got. Could have been a decade or two, the entire global power structure might be different right now. The government stepped in and covered the bank losses with taxpayer money. They bailed them out of their greedy mistakes because if they hadn’t, the American economy would have tanked.”
“I mean, it did tank” Riggly countered, “I never saw my dad cry before the ’08 crash. Guy was scared his company was going to go under on him.”
“Right,” Will acknowledged, “It’s always the little guys that get hurt the most. You know how many bankers went to jail over that? For nearly destroying the American economy?”
“I dunno, not many?”
“One, dude. One guy went to jail for a couple of months I think.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“It was low as hell I know that,” Will rebutted, retreating from his statement out of uncertainty, “More bankers went to jail in Europe than here.”
Riggly was familiar with Will’s method of persuasion: say whatever they’ll believe but if they question it, double down, pivot and be vague.
It was always hard to argue with vague.
“Anyways,” Will continued without breaking pace, “The Dotcom crash was the last real crash because the government stepped in to try and stop the ‘08 crash and that was the beginning of the end.”
“That was Dubya Bush right? Bailing out the banks?” Riggly asked.
He knew the answer, and Will knew he knew the answer, so Riggly grinned when Will threw him a scowl.
“Sure,” Will admitted, “But that’s not the point. The point is it ended recessions. Now whenever a recession comes along, investors expect that the government will bail the companies out. I mean why wouldn’t they? They did it before.
“All of these new young investors are hearing from the investors of ‘08 that the government bailed them out, and the investors who bought the dip in ‘08 only had to wait for four years to break even again and start seeing a profit. Half as much time as the Dotcom crash.
“So now investors are looking at recessions, not as something to be wary of as a sign of corruption and financial inefficiency, but as lucrative opportunities to buy stocks when their prices are low, right? Buy the dip. I see it all over the internet. You said it yourself. Kids just getting into the market are just spreading it on social media. Buy the dip because there’s no downside to the stock market.”
“I have seen that phrase everywhere,” Riggly agreed, “And I don’t even do stocks.”
“It’s a brainless mantra. People prefer to just have phrases to apply to everything rather than having to think about the context of each situation. It’s the brain rot of social media these days. Marshmallow test right? People prefer to do what’s easy rather than do the hard thing now and benefit in the future. Why put everything into context when you can repeat a mantra and not think? If you just follow the Buy the dip mantra, you just put your money in the market and don’t stress about it ever. It’s much more relaxing than actually figuring out if this is a good time to be investing or not you see?”
“I see,” Riggly shifted on the red bench cushion to lean back, “I thought you weren’t meant to try and time the market or something?”
“The problem is,” Will ignored Riggly, “Companies started believing it too. Think about it, older execs leaving, new leadership coming in, recession just got cancelled by the government. So these companies now think the government is gonna protect them. In 2010, companies started doing stock buybacks in huge amounts.”
“Stock buybacks?”
“Yeah, they used to be illegal!” Will shouted, rising to his feet in his passion, “Can you believe that?”
“Hey!” A neighboring table called out, “Keep it down, we’re trying to watch the game!”
“Shut up!” Will snapped, sitting down again before continuing.
“The Supreme Court in the 80s said that companies could buy back their own stock,” he continued, “So we get to 2010, these companies see that the government will protect them, and they start buying their own stock.”
“What does that do?” Riggly asked.
“It does two things,” Will replied putting two fingers up and counting them off as he continued, “It makes the companies more vulnerable to a recession, and it artificially inflates the price of their stock.”
“Wait, what?” Riggly said, “What do you mean?”
“So a company can buy its own stock, say it buys the shares at $50 per share right? My first point: vulnerability. That money would normally have gone into growth, into expansion, maybe research and development or marketing. Right? Companies spend money on improving themselves, they buy more assets, they hire better employees, they enter new markets to increase profitability right?
“It’s like you own a house, and when you get money you spend it on improving your house, right? But when the company buys its stock instead, it’s like they’re painting the house rather than paying for repairs. The house looks nicer, it looks more appealing, but the rot is still in the walls, you feel me? The house just keeps getting repainted and it keeps looking nice while it is rotting inside. But the share holders buy it, they like how new the house looks, they like that the stock price is going up. They don’t think about the long term ramifications of a company spending money inflating its stock price vs investing in improvements and growth.”
“Like the marshmallow test?”
“Exactly!” Will gleamed with pride, “And why would they? The market only goes up, who needs reserves of cash in case of a recession when recessions are cancelled?”
“OK,” Riggly admitted, “I’m following ya.”
“Not only that,” Will continued getting excited, “But if the stock drops below the price they paid, that $50 mark, suddenly all of that money that would have been spent on improvements is now in a position that is losing money. It is the worst case scenario. Now the company owns a bunch of its own stock, and the stock price is going down, meaning while the value of the company drops, the value of the assets it owns also goes down. That is not normal.
“If you have a farming company and your stock drops in price, all of your farming equipment does not follow. You can still sell those assets to make some money back to help during the recession. No one is going to want to buy your under water shares when your share price is in a downward spiral, but they might buy functioning farming equipment, or office chairs and stuff.
“So if the market ever gets to that point, if we ever see stock prices like we did in say 2015/2016, a lot of companies are going to just go up in flames. Big companies too! The market is skewed to the big guys like Apple and Microsoft and shit. They’re like a third of the economy or something. The Magnificent Seven they call them. It’s incredibly dangerous where we’re at.”
“Jeez,” Riggly muttered horrified.
“Then my second point, by buying the stocks back, the company is driving the price of the shares higher. So not only have they not put that money back into their business in terms of growth, but they are trying to fake that growth by buying shares and raising the price of their stock.”
“I get it now,” Riggly sipped on his beer, “It seems crazy risky.”
“It is! It’s a double whammy! This is what I’m trying to tell you. The higher the price goes, the more people want in, and the more people want in, the higher it goes. When it falls, all those people are gonna get creamed. It’s the marshmallow test all over. Companies are putting short term profitability over long term sustainability. Buy the dip. Everyone is saying it, companies are saying it. Everyone is making trades and investments with the belief the government will protect them.
“So, fast forward to COVID. We get President Dump in office in 2016 and everyone is expecting a recession, things have been going great for ages, interest rates are low, people have had easy access to money so obviously, you’d expect lots of people to be getting careless.”
“Right.”
“Here, look at what this 2018 price chart, that’s what the SPY did,” Will passed his phone to Riggly once again with a different chart displayed.
“The SPY only fell like $60 per share,” he explained, “And then it immediately bounced back. During the Dotcom crash the market lost $80 a share and it lasted around eight years, and the ‘08 crash also lost like $80 a share and it only lasted four years. Now we have the 2018 fake crash and you can see on the chart the market only loses $60 a share and is back up in less than a year. You know why?”
“Buy the dip?”
“Exactly!” Will’s face lit up in excitement with a broad grin, “Investors started buying in earlier than normal because they didn’t believe in the recession and they squeezed the market!”
The Houston Texans had failed to score previously, missing a field goal, but they had made their way back along the football pitch and managed to get the touchdown this time. The bar started to feel a little tense as the Texans took the lead. One drunk guy sitting at the counter on a stool booed loudly.
7-3 to the Houston Texans.
“They squeezed the market?”
“Shit, OK,” Will realized he’d lost his friend again, “You know how you can buy shares of a company, and it goes up, and you sell the shares for a profit?”
“Yeah.”
“The same works going down. You borrow the shares from the bank to sell them short, it’s called shorting. If the stock drops in price, you can buy the shares back for the lower price. The profit is the same, it’s the difference between your entry and your exit, but it works both ways.”
“Huh?”
“OK, say you have a company, XYZ, and you think they suck or there’s bad news coming or something, you can borrow shares from the bank to short. So say you borrow 100 shares, and the price at the time is $50 per share, right? Then when the stock drops to $40 per share, you buy them back. So if you borrowed 100 shares, you borrowed $5,000 worth of shares to sell, but when you bought them back, you only had to spend $4000. So you still return the 100 shares that you borrowed to the bank, no problem, and that extra $1000 is yours to keep. That’s shorting.”
“Wait,” Riggly paused the conversation to assess, “You’re saying I can borrow 100 shares from a bank, and as long as I return the 100 shares to the bank I can keep any difference in the price change?”
“They still have the 100 shares and they made money on commission from you buying and selling the shares so yeah. That’s short selling. But the problem with short selling is that you can get squeezed. Because you don’t technically own the stock, you borrowed it.”
“What’s squeezed?” Riggly leaned forward on the table, eager with ignorance.
“So, say you buy a company at $100 per share right? And the company goes bankrupt. Your money goes to zero. But that’s a good thing.”
“That’s a good thing?”
“Yeah, it can’t go lower than zero,” Will continued, “But if you short a company, and it goes up…” Will trailed off to let Riggly come to his own conclusion.
“It can keep going up?”
“Right,” his friend congratulated, “If you short a company like Tesla, and the stock just keeps going up, your losses keep going up with it because you at some point have to buy back those 100 shares. If you bought Tesla shares at $100 per share and it goes to zero and you had 100 shares you lose $1000. If Tesla goes to $500 per share, and you sold it short instead, you are now out $5000. And it can go up to infinity.
“So when people get greedy and they bet too much to the down side, if the stock goes up you can get a reverse run. Rather than everyone trying to get out, everyone is trying to get in as cheap as they can to get the stock back to the bank. This is called a squeeze because now everyone is buying a company and driving the price higher and higher and higher for no reason related to the company’s fundamentals. It’s a self perpetuating cycle. You remember GameStop?”
“Yeah I do, was that a squeeze?”
“One hundred per cent. This guy called Roaring Kitty noticed that a lot of investors had shorted that stock because, well, it’s a brick and mortar gaming company. Playstation and Xbox now had online stores where you could buy the games and download them from home, so why would anyone go to the store?
“Investors thought this would kill the company and they shorted the stock, borrowed and sold a ton of shares. So Roaring Kitty organized a bunch of online traders on reddit and places, and suggested they buy the stock because it would squeeze it. You saw what happened?”
“I heard it was a big deal,” Riggly stated, “But I didn’t see what happened.”
“Dude,” Will paused for emphasis, “GameStop went from $2 per share to the moon in three months. I think it got as high as $400 at one point. It was insane. People saw it and got greedy. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity but I still see naive people online talking about what the next big squeeze is going to be. I think Roaring Kitty made like 20 million dollars off of it.”
“That’s insane,” Riggly said in amazement. He sipped his beer down to the halfway point again and noted that Will was still outpacing him with only a third left.
“So now you understand what the squeeze means, you see what happened in 2018. Lots of smart investors were predicting a market crash and they not only took money out of the market but used that money to bet on the downside. When the market rebounded thanks to the Buy the dip gang, everyone got back into the market and drove it right back up. Less than a year to break even, and if you were one of the people who did buy the dip, then you made a boatload of money.”
“Damn,” Riggly admitted, “That’s kinda wild. I never thought the market could be this crazy.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers had made another drive down the pitch and Will and Riggly paused to watch the field goal attempt. It was good!
Houston still held the lead 7-6, but hope was growing.
“The market is just human psychology and economics combined. It’s super cool, there’s all these different ways to trade and all of these trade vehicles. You could get lost studying this thing, it’s really incredible.”
“Yeah I see that now,” Riggly took another sip of his beer. Will finished his and looked expectantly at Riggly. After a slight nod, Will signaled for the barkeep again and stuck two fingers in the air.
Message received.
Riggly took a big glug of his beer so there was only a sip or two left. He wished his friend would spend as much time researching his political takes as he did looking into the math behind the market.
“That brings us to COVID,” Will continued, “And we should have really crashed during COVID. But we didn’t really, we couldn’t.”
“I thought I saw a bunch of headlines about historic price drops back then?” Riggly interjected.
“Yeah, there were. The market went from $330 down to $218 in three months, it was mental. Over $100 per share just wiped. Here, check this out.”
Riggly was presented with another chart that showed the devastating impact of COVID on US stocks.
“That’s more than the other recessions you’re talking about,” Riggly put in with a hint of confusion, “How is this one fake?”
“Because it didn’t stay down. It took Japan thirty years to get back. It still took us four years until 2012 to reach the same level we were at in 2008. This was back up by the end of the year.
“Think about it dude, the damn Dems shut the whole country down. Companies couldn’t make any money, they couldn’t import new products or shift the ones they had. They almost killed us. No one could go out and buy anything or spend money, it was insanity. You remember that mask bull shit? Everything should have fallen apart.”
Riggly wanted to yell in his friend’s face that it wasn’t the Democrats, but the entire world that shut down. Despite how they felt, Republicans were some of the only people on the planet who fought to keep their country open. Riggly could not think of a single other nation where a group of people had fought against safety precautions like wearing masks and getting vaccinated to such an extent.
He didn’t know how many times he had to resist the urge to tell his friend over the years that the United States had one of the most detrimental COVID responses and millions of Americans had died unnecessarily because Republicans wanted to ignore reality in favor of the fake news offered by their lying and treasonous golden boy.
Riggly had lost several friends during COVID. It infuriated him that this meant nothing to Republicans. But Will had heard the complaints and he refused to change his tune on the party he’d been loyal to his whole life.
Until now apparently. Now that he was the one suffering.
The bartender arrived with two full beers and, after Riggly downed the rest of his, the server removed the empty glasses from the table.
“You know what happened?” Will asked him.
“Your guy printed a bunch of money to bribe voters to vote for him because he did such a shit job dealing with the pandemic as president?” Riggly asked, trying to provoke his friend as a small form of revenge for his voting history.
“That’s part of it,” Will admitted, “Man, I thought that was great at the time too. $2K checks to help everyone out, loans for businesses so they could pay their workers, it all made sense. It looked like it stopped the Dem’s sabotaging the economy to get their grubby hands back on the controls for a bit. But you know what else it was?”
“I dunno, blatant corruption?” Riggly jabbed.
“It was a bailout dude,” Will countered, “The PPP loans they gave out were never paid back, the $2K checks were never paid back. I know the country was going to collapse, and everyone was expecting a recession, but it was still a bailout. And it meant that the Buy the dip mantra club was right again. COVID happened and the market finished the year at like $378.”
“It was higher? Despite the country closing?” Riggly asked, “Because of the squeeze?”
“Yep, because of the squeeze,” Will agreed, “And the bailout. Look at the chart! Why not invest if the government will climb in and save the day every time?”
“This is the second time a Republican president has done this now,” Riggly pointed out, “Funny how the party of small government is for spending big bucks all the time.”
Will shifted uncomfortably on the red vinyl cushion and looked to the tv screens as an escape, only to witness the Steelers fail to score a touchdown which soured his mood even further.
“A lot of people would have suffered if they hadn’t,” he mumbled, “Regardless, what’s happened has happened. We’re talking about today remember?”
“Right,” Riggly acknowledged, raising his glass in a toast, “The end of the world.”
“Yeah,” Will confirmed, “Well, now you see what’s happened. Every time the market looks at a recession, the government steps in and bails them out, so now investors think it will just always happen. There is no danger to investing in the stock market anymore because the recession’ll only last half a year at this point. And you know what that means don’t ya?”
“Corruption?” Riggly asked.
“It means people will make riskier plays,” Will corrected after a swig of beer, “It means that people aren’t scared of recessions anymore, so they don’t happen. If people don’t think the market is gonna fall, why would they take their money out? And also, if people think the market is gonna return to its highs within a year, why would they take their money out when they can sit in and ride it the whole time? Buy the dip at the bottom and make some profit on the way up?
“You see, the market has this artificial floor now that it can’t fall below because so many of the new investors just believe in the buy the dip mantra. They haven’t experienced a recession that took longer than four years. Look at Japan’s stock market! It is just getting back to where it was nearly like forty years ago. If you bought the dip you simply did not get your money back for years and years and years. You probably died. But not here, not in America. Our stock market goes up forever apparently.”
“What goes up must come down, no?”
“Exactly,” Will agreed finishing what was left of his pint and leaning forward, “But it can’t come down until enough people believe it will and it can’t come down with all of the inflation.”
“The inflation from when your prez printed the money for COVID?” Riggly reminded sipping his own beverage.
“Right, and the tariffs,” Will added, “Don’t forget the tariffs. I thought the tariffs would be a good idea, Reagan did it with great success you know.”
“Yeah, not really. And Reagan used them the way they’re normally used, to protect certain American industries. Dump just tariffed everything, even stuff we don’t make here, so now the prices are just going up.”
Riggly smiled. Saying the nickname was pretty fun.
“Right, the trade war has been bad for inflation,” Will admitted, “But inflation has been great for stock prices.”
“OK,” Riggly felt drained as he took another sip, “Where are you going with this man?”
The televisions visually announced the end of the third quarter with no side scoring. Entering the fourth quarter the Texans were still leading by 1.
“Do you know what the stock market is at today? The price of the SPY today? Keep in mind it is meant to represent GDP growth and the health of the economy. Keeping in mind the tariffs and all the rot from the lack of recessions. What do you think?”
“I dunno,” Riggly said pulling a number from thin air, “Like $450 or something? You said it was at $370 something in 2021?”
Will put his glass down and leaned in.
“The SPY is at $690 per share.”
“What?”
“According to modern day investors, the American economy is worth nearly double what it was worth just five years ago.”
“But that’s impossible no?” Riggly asked, “The country isn’t producing twice as many products, we aren’t selling as much overseas and stuff. You heard that report that China didn’t buy any soy beans from us for another quarter? How is the market supposed to be worth twice as much? Even with inflation that doesn’t make sense.”
“I know dude,” Will answered, “Now you understand. The market should have crashed so many times since the dumbass got re-elected, because of everything we’ve spoken about, but it’s higher than ever. It’s ignoring reality entirely.
“From the 2008 housing crisis to the 2019 COVID announcement, the market doubled. That’s with record low interest rates and real economic growth. It went from $150 up to $330. But think about it, companies like Facebook, Tesla, Google, these companies were really blowing up and their value explains the market growth. Between 2020 and now, so five years, the market doubled again. It doubled in half the time dude, and nothing is better. Nothing is better than it was back then.”
“So what’s going on?” Riggly asked.
He finished his beer and pushed the glass to the side. Will had been waiting patiently for this and caught the bartender’s attention again. Two fingers.
Message received.
“Inflation is some of it. When the value of the dollar drops you need more money to buy anything. The corruption is some of it too, people received $2K checks and were sitting at home with nothing to do. Lots of people put that money into the stock market. Buy the dip. They’re sitting pretty now and the mantra paid off. But the real scary thing, for me, is AI.”
“AI?” Riggly watched the bartender pouring the pints at the bar, “This is the AI bubble I keep hearing about?”
“Think about it man,” Will said raising his voice, “It’s just like the Dotcom bubble. It’s just like it. All of these companies are talking about AI this and AI that. What’s-his-name Waltman or something is saying they need to spend trillions more dollars on the infrastructure. None of these companies are profitable yet dude, none of them. But people are buying in left right and center.”
“Doesn’t AI work though?” Riggly asked uncertainly, “Like, can’t it find cancer or something?”
Will saw the bartender approaching, and waited for him to take the empty glasses before continuing.
“Have you used AI?” Will asked, gazing over the rim of his glass before drinking.
“Yeah,” Riggly admitted, “I’ve used ChatGPT a couple of times. It’s pretty cool actually. I wrote a poem. with it.”
“No you didn’t.”
The fourth and final quarter had started and the Houston Texans took the ball and put it through the uprights for three points, generating a loud grown from the people sitting at the bar. Riggly noted Will’s irritable reaction. Losing sucks.
Houston was leading 10-6.
“OK, I guess Chat GPT wrote a poem for me,” Riggly conceded, “I had to give it prompts though.”
“No, you stole parts of that poem from somewhere else,” Will took a gulp and put his glass down, “Do you know how Chat GPT works?”
“No I don’t,” Riggly accepted sheepishly, “Do you?”
“Yeah I know some,” Will said a little too confidently, “It takes the prompt, translates it into zeros and ones, then it uses the translation to match data in its storage for previous similar translations and inserts the closest one before turning it back to english.”
“Is that really how it works?” Riggly asked in surprise.
He had some understanding of how the AI worked but he hadn’t heard this take. Will’s information often required further investigation to confirm his sources. This was just another subject of research Riggly would have to do later.
“I’m telling you, that’s how it works,” Will asserted, “AI doesn’t speak human dude. If you type a question into the Google search and get an AI response, that response changes when you put the question in a different language. I’ve done it. The answer can be entirely different in another language because it doesn’t speak human, it has to translate everything from human into electronic. Have you seen that video of the two AI chat bots talking?”
“Electronic?” Riggly asked, “No I haven’t.”
“It’s scary dude,” Will continued excitedly, his voice growing louder, “It’s an AI assistant trying to book a holiday from an AI server and when they realize they are both AI, one of them says: “Would you like to change our communication to be more efficient?” and the other one is like, “Yes”, and they both start making the broadband noise. You remember dial-up? It sounded kinda like that, like electronic whining and static. That’s what they hear, that’s what they understand.”
“That seems crazy,” Riggly said doubtfully, “You sure that wasn’t fake?”
“I’m telling you Riggs,” Will banged a fist on the table forcefully, “That’s the way it is! Think about what an AI is for a second. They tell you its artificial intelligence, have you thought about what that means?”
“It’s like a self-learning program right?”
Will banged his fist on the table again in frustration and several patrons turned to look for the cause of the disturbance.
“Wrong!” Will insisted, “They are pattern recognition machines that simulate human intelligence.”
“OK, easy man,” Riggly tried to calm his friend, “That seems pretty similar. What’s the problem?”
“The problem,” Will continued raising his voice, “Is that they are faking intelligence. They are designed to trick us into thinking they are thinking. It’s all fake.”
A giant man had struggled off of the booth bench he was sat on to walk over to their table. He had a round face but there was no questioning his strength as his muscles announced themselves beneath his Steelers jersey.
“Hey,” he said leaning on the back of Riggly’s bench, “We’re trying to watch the game here. Can you keep it down?”
“Yeah man,” Riggly said quickly, “Sorry about that.”
The man grunted, satisfied with the response, and made his way back to his own booth.
“It’s fake!” Will hissed at his friend as if nothing had happened. He picked up his beer and finished what was left.
“I guess that makes sense,” Riggly admitted, “If they are designed to simulate intelligence I mean.”
Will raised his hand and asked Riggly with his eyes but when he shook his head, Will put a single finger in the air and waved it at the bartender impatiently.
“Yeah but people think it’s actually intelligents,” Will argued still looking away, “Look at you. You thought there was some conscious being in the computer responding to you, but it was just pretending to understands you. It’s the Chinese room all over again.”
Riggly adopted his most quizzical face and when Will finally caught it he explained.
“The Chinese room is a thought experiment. Say you get a new job and you’re in a room, there’s a table with a big book of Chinese phrases on it and every now and again a piece of paper will be slid under the door with Chineesh writing on it. Your job is to take the phrase to tha book, find the appropriate matching response and write it down on the paper. Then you pass it back under the door. Job done, right?”
Message received, finally. Beer on the way. Will put his hand down.
“I guess?”
“So the question is. Do you now understand Chinese?”
“After doing the job?” Riggly asked, “Are there translations in the book?”
“Naw. It’s all written in Chinese, you’re jusht matching what you see on the paper to what you see in the book.”
“Uh…I guess not,” Riggly admitted.
“Right,” Will said flatly, “You haven’t learned anything. AI can’t speak human. It’s the same thing. It’s exactly the same thing.”
“Are you sure?” Riggly scratched his cheek, “I mean, I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“You thought they spoke English because they are designed to mislead us in termsha their intelligence, and at that point what else could they mislead us with?”
Will sat back triumphantly, his point made with conviction. He picked up his pint glass again and took a deep gulp. The alcohol seemed to be impeding his speech slightly.
The Pittsburgh Steelers failed to score on their next drive, giving the ball back to Houston who had no problem finding the end zone for the second time that game.
Houston Texans 17, Pittsburgh Steelers 6.
“Oh come on,” Riggly countered with his growing frustration at the game boiling over into their discussion, “That’s just some conspiracy Skynet stuff. That’s not real.”
“It ish man,” Will argued, “You know what I never wondered until now? Who was in the White House in that movie. Who was in charge of regulating AI when Shkynet was allowed to be developed? I never questioned who was in government in movies before, but now that I’m seeing such an incompetent asshat I realize it might be a valid question.”
“I dunno, do you even know what the government parties are in that universe?” Riggly joked condescendingly, “And when did you stop being a believer? You seem mad at your golden boy all of a sudden.”
“That’s because I see what President Dump is doing. He’s banning states from regulating AI. Just from regulating it dude. They aren’t allowed to put any controls on it, no protections, no nothing. The people are just left vulnerable to this technology they’ve never encountered before. It’s sickening.”
“He’s banning it?” Riggly asked in surprise.
“Here, look at this,” Will took his phone out and after opening it he passed it to his friend, “Read that article. That’s from the White House. I’ve confirmed it from other places too. I’ve screen shotted another article, you can check. He’s banning states from regulating it.”
(Source: Official White House Policy Website)
While his friend was reading Will finished his drink and sat quietly watching the football. The Houston Texans scored another touchdown and it pissed him off more than a little. He felt embarrassed by the team he loyally supported and he didn’t like it.
He didn’t like feeling embarrassed.
Houston 24, Pittsburgh still 6.
“So AI is going to trick us all and destroy the world, is that it?” Riggly finally asked when he had finished reading.
Will kept watching the screen but replied without his eyes.
“Nope.”
“Well, what is it then?” Riggly demanded, “You keep talking about the world ending and AI this and AI that and you still haven’t explained it.”
“It’s the market, man,” Will watched his friend from the corner of his eye while Riggly took another sip of his beer, “These AI companies in the market are telling investors that they have the golden goose. They have cracked the code of AI. They’re all competing man, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, all of the biggest companies have skin in the game. It is in their best interest to exaggerate how advanced their AI is so they can make more money.”
He picked up his own glass and took a hefty swig before setting it down to face Riggly.
“And what’s worse,” he continued with a slight slur, “Open AI and all the other new AI companies ar’all private. You can’t look at their data, you can’t look at their financialsh or their numbers. We have no clue how much they make or how they’re making it and they’re still promising everything. People are just eating it up, loading money into companies that have no obvious path to profitability.”
Will’s face was getting flushed as the drink drove his passions ever higher.
“So now you’re starting to shee, Riggs. The market has been getting more and more vulnerable over the last twenty years, thanks to a lack of conshequences, and now when we are in our most dangerous position, no one believes in reshessions, and no one is being safe. Everyone is desperate to make a quick buck. It’s the marshmallow test. We saw that play out in real time with crypto. Remember crypto?”
“Yeah, I remember crypto.”
“So many people lost money. So many people got burned. Why? Because crypto isn’t a government backed industry, there’s no bailout for crypto bros. That’s what happens in real life, dude. You make a bad investment, you buy the wrong coin or company, you lose money.
“That’s not how the shtock market works anymore. It’s all corrupt, it’s all supported by this corrupted government who’ll do whatever they can to prop it up. They stop shtates from limiting the use of AI, they lie about the economy, all to mislead the investing public. And why shouldn’t they? If this market falls we might see the end of the modern finanshial era as we know it. We’re playing musical chairs with economies and I am terrified of what happens when the music stops.
“Companies are going to go under, bro. Bankshah gonna to go under, people won’t be able to get any money, people won’t be able to buy anything which’ll kill more companies. We’re looking at maybe a decade at least of pure unadulterated financial pain and all the people caushing it are the ones who will be fine.”
Will suddenly looked tired. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe something in the man had changed. Perhaps having his eyes opened to the corruption of the party he put into place was weighing on his conscious. Whatever it was, it passed a moment later and Will asked Riggly if wanted another refill.
“Sure,” he replied after finishing his third pint, “How many have you had today man?”
“I dunno, shix or seven,” Will slurred ordering another round. The bartender arrived just as the Houston Texans intercepted a pass and scored a touchdown off of it. The bar-goers were furious, yelling at the tv and cursing their veteran quarterback to Hell.
30 - 6 to Houston.
“Sho,” Will said once the bartender left, “Now you understand. We’re in a Dotcom type scenario with a new technologies that a bunch of peoples are investing in, but they don’t know how to make money with it yet and the companies have no means of making a profit so at some point, everything ish gonna collapse. I don’t think America can afford to bail this bubble out either, the deficit is already way out of control. It’s like $38 trillion dollars or something insane like that. So we’re all screwed.”
“Why are people still investing if everyone knows this?”
Will took a moment to appreciate how far they’d come in the conversation, only for him to finally make the point that started it all.
“Because everyone and their grandmas is using AI,” he answered angrily, “Waltman just goes to his investment buddies and shays, look at how many monthly users we have, and they just give him more money.
“They don’t understand it. You don’t understand it. They’re going to bring adverts to ChatGPT soon, that’sh their shpiel. Can you imagine? These investors have pumped billions of dollars into these companies expecting revolutionary returns and the CEO’s sholution for making a profit is to put adverts on ChatGPT and to charge people to use it. It’s peanuts.
“The only reasons people are usin’ it now is ‘cause it’s free! If it wasn’t free half the people wouldn’t be. If it pauses to play thirtys second ads at ‘em when they’re in the middle of working, they won’t bother. It’sh insane that anyone thinks these companies will be able to produce on their promises.”
Will was winding himself up, getting more and more irate as he continued explaining his conspiracy theory to his friend. Someone in the bar yelled for them to keep it down and Riggly was worried the big guy would return. He sat quietly sipping his beer and quietly imagining the end of the world as Will laid it all out before him.
It scared him more than a little.
“It getsh worse,” Will continued, the slur creeping into more of his speech as the liquor began to take its toll, “Theses people, they forgot how an economy works! They have so much money they lose touch with reality. They only want to maximize profit no matter the cost, they’re all ins this shitty dick meazuring contest about how much money they can make, because money is power so they’re powerful people now. Don’tcha know?
“They’re been keepin wages low for years and wha-does that mean? More debt! People can’t afford to just buy things anymore, they gotta go in debt! They have to use their credit and cards. They hafta subscribe! It makes wealth inequally way worse! And then… then who’s gonna buy all the products an’ shit?
“People have to subshcribe nowadays, they have to keep payin’ they can’t just own anything anymore. What happens when no one has the moneys to pay? It’s all going downhill like that!”
Will banged his fist on the table once again to vehemently drive home his point. Several patrons had made complaints by this time and the big guy in the Steelers jersey was voicing his grievances to the bartender directly.
The game ended.
The Steelers lost by twenty four points.
Nobody was in a good mood.
“Hey man,” Riggly interjected, “Easy now. We’re just talking remember?”
“No, Riggs,” Will shouted loudly, “We’re not just talking! AI is being trained on people for free! Theesh idiots…and all they grandmas are boosting ChatGPT numbers and they’re training the AI at the same time. I know it’s not thereyeh, but I believe in a future with AI, with real AI. An’ unfortunately thererer two futures ahead. Tha one where AI is like in, like with Star Trek, and people work for purpose rather than money, an’ AI is really intelligent, an’ it learns and grows an’ interacts with us the way we all dreamed.
“Then there’sa future two, where the people in charge of AI grow more rich between themselves and everyone else, until AI can replace all’ovus, and we live in some shitty dystopian where everyone has to, like, work for no reason because we have these old stupid structures that forgot the whole point of workin’ the first place.
“We worked the, the fields to grow our food, we use’da work in factories to make goods we needed and shtuff. If AI can grow food, and work factories, why do we need to work? Huh?
“I’ll tellya! ‘Cause if humans don’t hafta work, all that money the billionaires have will be worthless! Worth nothing! They lose all they power! That’s why they’re so invested in keeping the lie going. AI removes the need for us to work, but suddenly you see, if that happens, and money becomes meaninglesh, yeh, now you shee! The world ends!”
Will had been building his tirade slowly in volume to its inevitable crescendo. His face was bright red with beer and rage as he made his final points.
“If money is, it has no meaning, then what happens to the stocks market?” Will roared, banging his glass down on the table with vigor.
Several people shouted for him to shut up at the same time, but Ralph just stood with his eyebrows crinkled in stern fury at the supposed truth he had finally unveiled for his friend.
“Do you see now, Riggsh?” he demanded, leaning aggressively over the table and pushing his blood filled face into Riggly’s, “Do you see the end of the world now? The market’ll fall Riggs! They billionaires’ll take their money out first man, and your dad, my dad, e’ryone else, it, we’ll be dead. No jobs ‘cus of AI, money gonna be worthless. Can you i-ma-gine Riggsh? People starving, selling their kids for money like in da thirtees! What are you gonna do then? Where can ya go? Every country has American debt! We’re all going down together! It’sgon be like 2008 for the whole world times a thousand!”
“Dude,” Riggly pushed his friend back in annoyance, “I get it, you made your point. Sit down man, you’re making a scene.”
His breath was rank and his face was flushed but Will did not sit down.
He remained standing at the end of the booth, leaning on the table in his conclusive moment of rage, trapped in his anger. He was so infuriated, so frustrated at the world and his assessment of how it treated him, that he just wanted to spread the flames of his fury to others. He didn’t care. People needed to know what he knew. They needed to see the truth.
“Tha’s why I lost my money,” he continued, “Because every time this fucking market looksh like it’s gonna fall, that asshole Dump comes out and lies about it, and everything is just fine!
“Looks like it’sh going down ‘cause of tha tariffs? Nope! Dump comes out and says tariffs are cancelled! Ninety days! Ain’t it great? All my moneys, up in smoke. He makes a problem and then fixshes tha problem and everyone’sh overjoyed. They were his tariffs! They just forget about it.
Now heesh invading Greenland! Is the market going to fall? I thought so! A world war? But nope! Oh look! Heesh deshided not to do that after all either! Surprise, surprise! An’ everything is just fogotten! Good as new! All my money whoosh! Up in smoke again.
“No one cares market is double COVID! No’on cares that theses companies are lying! Nowan cares every piece of noos we get is bad noos. No’on cares that the govenments putting out fake numbers since the shutdown last year! That’sh right! Did I say that? They’re been releasin’ numbers and economists think they’re fake! No one fucking cares because everyone is sooo buzy tryin’ ta eat their god damn marshmallows!”
The bartender stepped out from behind the counter and approached the table, the big man in tow.
“Hey, buddy,” he said to Will, “I closed your tab out. You have to go, you’re disturbing the customers.”
“Dishturbing the customers?” Will yelled in anger, “I am the fucking customers!”
The big Steelers fan reached passed the barkeep and grabbed Will by his jersey.
“That’s it,” he said gruffly, hauling Will in the direction of the door. Riggly stood up stunned as the scenario unfolded in front of him.
Will started shouting at the big guy to let him go, drunkenly punching his bulky stomach to no avail. The man squeezed Will’s bicep until he whimpered and stopped, before shoving him roughly toward the doorway. Many of the patrons of the bar cheered as they watched the scene, getting their fill of blood lust from the surprising drama in place of the victory they craved on the sports field.
Riggly gave an apologetic shrug to the barkeep who replied with an understanding look before they both flinched as a gunshot rang out.
Everyone in the bar ducked and looked around. A woman screamed into the sudden silence. The big Steelers fan had stopped walking and was looking down at his front when another shot rang out. The man grunted and fell sideways with a loud thud.
Standing over his dead body was Will, pistol in hand.
“Real big now’aren’chya?” Will yelled vindictively, kicking the hulking mass on the floor in anger and looking up at the rest of the bar-goers.
He sneered at the bartender for a second and then raised the gun, took a step forward and fired. The woman screamed once more. The bullet hit the bartender in the chest and sent him reeling to the floor, with Will striding towards him, firing again. When he reached the body he rolled it over with his foot and shot him twice in the face.
“Fuck you, pretty boy,” he said, spitting on his victim before looking up.
People had started running from the bar, shouting and shrieking in fear for their lives as they abandoned the premises. Will raised the gun and fired into the air, halting all movement. The people that had made it through the doors fled, but the patrons that were inside remained trapped.
A bully’s smile spread across his flushed face as he started to enjoy the power he now had. Riggly wondered if this was the same look that the billionaires Will decried had as they surveyed their investment portfolios. His heart was skipping with adrenaline as he stood and slowly approached his life-long friend.
“Will,” he said, “Willy, come on buddy, don’t do this.”
He had his hands up as if he was trying to tame a beast, but his friend raised the gun and shot Riggly in the leg.
“Fuck you too, Riggs,” he sneered, “Fuggin, always looking down on me. Always assuming I don’t know what I’m talking about. What about now huh? How does this work for ya?”
“What are you doing, man?” Riggly cried as he grabbed at his bleeding leg in pain.
The fiery feeling was overwhelming, throbbing afresh with each heartbeat. He rolled on the floor as Will started patrolling the bar, looking at the jury currently judging him.
He stopped and leveled his gun at the young woman who had been scrolling earlier, now speaking quietly on the phone.
“Who ya calling, bitch?” Will shouted in anger.
“Oh God, no,” she whimpered turning before he pulled the trigger and ended her call.
“No more phones!” Will hollered in annoyance, “I’m in charge now. Fucking losers.”
Riggly dragged himself onto the booth bench, tears of pain stinging his eyes as he watched his childhood friend devolve into a monster.
Sirens could be heard in the distance, drawing closer until the blaring was right outside. Will smiled at his friend who was clutching his bleeding thigh and shivering with pain.
“Now you get it, huh Riggs?” Will asked, the adrenaline helping him a little to over ride the alcohol, “You sees how these people treated me? They treated me like garbage. Like an inconvenience to their precious game!”
He pointed the gun at the latino couple cowering in their booth before he turned slowly, aiming at each of the people it passed in turn.
“Look at you all,” he snarled condescendingly, “Worthless. Your countrys is falling apart and you shit here and watch sportsh. Just train they AI like silly dogs. Silly dogs for slaughter. Stealin’ my fuggin’ money! You let them dee-stract you from the facts they are robbing us blind and destoying our country! All of you with your little worlds, and your little social media apps and your fucking Chat GPT!
“That’s all you fuckas care about! Little Mr President, please tweet a lie for me! Pleases save my portfolio Mr President! We’ll believe whatever you say!
“And what about real people? Real Americans like me, who work they asses off, day in day out, just ta get shat on? Huh? Just ta get thrown in the gutter, by a bunch’a pansies who couldn’t care about anyone else. You know what you’ll are? Hypocrites. Well, look at ya now, my problemsh didn’t matter to you before huh? Will can go and get fucked by the corruption in the stock market, no one needsh to worry about him!”
Will strode up to a small middle-aged woman, made even smaller by her attempts to shrink as much as possible and he pointed the gun right in her face.
“Well it’sh your problem now ain’t it?” he shouted in her face.
The woman let out a terrified squeal and nodded her head in desperate agreement before Will pushed her away from him back to the floor. She scurried away under the table he’d pulled her from like a scuttling cockroach.
“E’ry time I think it’s here, e’ry fucking time I put my pieces in the right places and the market startsh ta go my way, he tweets out on his little truth shoshial shit. And you all eat it up! You believe every fucking word!
“Great deal with Greenland he says! You fucking morons, it’s the same ‘greement we already had with Greenland! Nothing changed! That’s the whole problem! That’s always the problem! He does nothing! Nothing changed!
“E’rything is shitty! E’rything is burning, he’s making billions of fucking dollars, and nothing has changed! And yet everyone is just la-dee-fucking-da listen to the president, he won’t tell a lie. In Dump we trust. You fucking idiots! Can’t you see he’s lying all the time? The market needsta fall! It needs it or we’ll all cooked!”
“Just because you believed him, doesn’t mean everyone does,” Riggly called out angrily, “Just because you believed him, despite everyone you know telling you not to, doesn’t mean we all feel bad for you now that woke up and can see the light.”
His leg was throbbing and he was tired of this hypocritical rant. It was always the same with this president’s fanboys. As far as Riggly could tell they all voted gleefully for an asshole who would punish people and give them the freedom to tell others how to live, but suddenly when they were the ones punished by him and they are the ones told how to live, suddenly it wasn’t fair.
Suddenly that’s not what they voted for.
It sickened Riggly, and his irritation with his childhood friend caused him to momentarily assume that Will would value the time they spent growing up together enough to not murder him.
“You want to say that again, Riggs?” Will challenged, rounding on his drinking buddy with threatening malevolence.
“Yeah,” Riggly continued, “You’re just like the rest of them dumbass. I see this all the time. The problem is, Willy, the evidence was there the whole time man. You refused to listen. We’ve had plenty of arguments about how your golden boy lies about everything, but up until now, you called everything I said fake news. You gas-lit me, you told me I couldn’t believe my own eyes. And now that you finally wake up to the reality, you blame everyone else?
“Oh, it’s not your fault? You couldn’t have known? Shut the fuck up bro! You did know and you ignored it on purpose because it made you feel good! You’re not special! You’re not smart! You’re just another sorry Republican that realized too late that when you vote for a piece of shit, the shit gets on everyone.
“You ended the fucking world Will, don’t blame people using AI, don’t blame people investing in stocks. You lost your own money. You voted for this. Everyone warned you and you voted for this anyways. Because you’re smarter than everyone apparently. Well I guess not huh mother fucker? I guess this is what happens. This is what we warned you about. This is when the world ends.”
Will stared at his friend as his ego was torn asunder.
Someone he trusted, someone he believed would comfort him, laying out his responsibility for the whole world to see. Will felt betrayed, but he questioned deep down how Riggly could do this to him, and that feeling was even worse.
He clenched his teeth in frustration. The furious energy building up inside him was screaming to be released. His stomach was tight, his shoulders were tensed. He was vibrating with anger which warped his reasoning into an indignant stubbornness.
There was no way Riggly was right. There was no way.
He couldn’t be.
Will felt everything pause, and a single thoughtless impulse took ahold. He squeezed the trigger. He shot Riggs who glared at him with surprise for a final moment before collapsing onto the now blood stained bench of the booth.
“Well, well, well,” Riggly said weakly as he died, “I guess they can call you an illegal now huh?”
Will looked around the bar, the silence still ringing with the shot. Reality began to reemerge from the drinking fog he’d lost himself in.
Patrons, hiding, were squeezed down into the smallest spaces they could find, terrified. He looked at the tv screens where the winning Houston Texans were celebrating.
The Pittsburgh Steelers were eliminated from playoff contention.
He looked back to his friend, remembering the days they shared before politics, when they got up to the adventures of childhood. When they were just dumb ten year olds running around the neighborhood, barefoot and ready for the world.
How wrong they’d been. No one was ready for this.
Blue and red flashing lights beamed into the room, painting the walls and customers with the familiar colors of an emergency. The police had arrived. Maybe it was the young woman’s call, maybe one of the escaped bar-goers.
It didn’t matter. They were here.
And Riggly was dead.
After laying out his financial failures and the conspiracy that he believed justified his actions, Will thought of the upcoming consequences and saw no future that he wanted to be a part of.
“Guess this is goodbye, Riggs,” he said softly, “I’ll see you in Hell.”
He raised the gun to his temple and closed his eyes.
But he couldn’t do it.
Will looked at the gun, glinting in the flashing lights, and he was ashamed. He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
“Fuck!” he roared, watching shadows flicker on the walls as the police outside prepared to enter the bar.
“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED!”
Will started to sweat. He instinctively rushed to the wall beside the door to avoid any potential incoming gun fire. He held his gun in both hands, pointed down, just like he’d seen in the movies. He gazed around at the fearful faces of his fellow customers.
His fellow Steelers fans. His fellow humans.
“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING!”
Panic scraped at his mind, sucking up his attention. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t think.
Something broke in him. He couldn’t pull the trigger himself, but maybe there was still an escape.
Maybe he could get out of this after all.
He tightened his grip on the gun and prepared to run. He looked to the doorway behind the counter of the bar.
Surrounded. No way out.
He readied himself and spun, yanking the door open and raising his weapon. His face was bathed in blue as it depicted his fury and his fear. He screamed in anger, his finger on the trigger.
Then the guns started singing.
Shrieking fire pierced Will’s skin, pounding his insides and burning its way out of his back as he was filled with lead. He dropped the gun as his body was punched back through the open doorway and he sprawled on the wooden floor of the bar, his once yellow and white jersey slowly soaking into a crimson red.
The police ran forwards, barking commands, and securing the scene. The scared customers of the bar fled like animals into the night, wailing with life as they abandoned their bullet ridden predator.
As Will’s existence escaped him, his head fell to the side and the last thing he saw was the form of his friend Riggly lying lifeless at the table they’d shared.
“Welcome to the news tonight, I’m your host Buck White. First on the docket, frightening new footage of the deranged leftist shooter who held up Bush’s Bar in Pittsburgh earlier this week has been obtained by us here at Fix News. We warn viewers that what you are about to see is extremely graphic and deeply disturbing.
“Sources say that the man, known as William Gutterman, was at the bar that day to watch a sports game with long time friend and victim Riggly Motes. Witnesses overheard Gutterman shouting about the President in an angry voice before he lost his temper and began shooting.
“The President immediately sent ICE to Pittsburgh to provide more protection for everyday citizens and I commend his decision. If this is how the radical left want to communicate with us, they need to know that Americans will not take these attacks lying down.
Mr Gutterman, a life-long democrat, died on the scene to police fire after taking the lives of four other customers. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims of this mindless attack as the investigation continues.
Now for news from the world of finance. The stock market rose another 2% this week as investor jitters were calmed thanks to the peace work of the President in Greenland.”
- The End -
Author’s note: Hey there! Seb here! I just wanted to thank you for choosing to spend your time reading my work. It means the world to little old me, to know that out of the darkness of our experiences we can form real human connections and investigate subjects that are profoundly filled with pain and beauty. Your support means a lot and I am honored that you put your belief in me to entertain you.
Thank you.
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© 2025 Sebastian Arends | Sincerely Seb. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any part of this story or accompanying image is prohibited without permission from the author. No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this work. The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies.
Whoa, what a ride. And the themes def parallel what we're actually living in today 👾
Beautifully written ❤️