Dana Blankenhorn

Wall Street is an App

It’s something I’ve been saying for decades, even while Wall Street’s control over our economy and politics has grown.

Wall Street is becoming an app. You can trade stocks with no commission. You can learn what’s going on at no cost. All those fancy degrees and expensive midtown offices that have driven markets for 150 years are worthless. It’s all one big casino.

The Gamestop kerfluffle is just a proof point. Thousands of small investors, many using discussion boards on Reddit, bought a stock that big Wall Street hedge funds had shorted, and drove one of them to the wall.

Chamath Palihapitiya, whose Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) will eventually cost small investors billions, because they’re pushing a lot of garbage onto the market on his say-so, is nevertheless one of the movement’s big cheerleaders. He wants basic reform. He wants to limit the amount of leverage Wall Street hedge funds can bring to a trade. He wants to limit how much of a company’s stock can be sold short.

Range Anxiety

Wall Street doesn’t know this, but the electric car market is in deep trouble. 

The problem is “range anxiety.” Zoom in on this map to see where we are now. The problem is acute, even in California.

Today, most electrics are used close to home. You buy a 240-volt plug, you snuggle the car up close, and you recharge it at night, just as you do your phone. Fine if you have a house. But not everyone lives in a house.

Some apartments have opened charging stations in their garages, and there are lots of on-street 120-volt and 240-volt “free charging” places. But you can’t scale the business that way. Free chargers quickly get full as electrics cease being a curiosity. And how long are you going to give electricity away? Third (and perhaps most important) wall current takes all night to deliver a fill-up. Most stations today are delivering wall current.