This is more political than about investing, but folks are getting a bit carried away here...

>>The fact that these hedge funds can short stocks that don’t even exist is disgusting.

Naked shorting does happen, but it is rare. And they are still paying to borrow the stock. And it isn't a privilege of the elite--you could also be naked shorting when you short stock at, say, Interactive Brokers. When you short you "borrow" stock but it's not like they move physical shares into a vault with your name on it. The lender has to reasonably believe the shares will be there to be lent, which is a moving target as shares are constantly traded/settled/moved. There is no special privilege to naked short granted to the elites

>>That they can take a company and run it into the ground for the benefit is disgusting.

I have no idea what this is referencing. Hedge funds don't run these companies, and shorting stock has no effect on the company's ability to operate. Bad management loves to blame shorts for the bad job it is doing. It's not like this is private equity - these are public companies and shorts don't get to proxy vote or do anything except talk about how bad the stock is. What exactly is the mechanism where this runs a company into the ground?

>>That they control the news outlets like CNBC, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, etc. is disgusting.

These are for-profit media businesses. They exist to make money. They are controlled by money. If they can make more money catering to rich hedge funds, they will. Most of the time they make more money catering to retail. Their revenues come from advertising. Watch their ads sometime...are they geared toward billionaires? Or regular guys who hang out on cougarboard or WSB?

>>That brokerages are preventing their customers from buying and selling certain stocks “for their benefit” is disgusting.

Brokerages are also for-profit. Their main interest is in having FLOW. Craziness is not good for their business...it keeps others from wanting to transact because there is too much risk. They are serving their own interests which in this case may go against the WSB crowd's objective. They also are subject to regulation and have a strong interest in preventing market manipulation which will undermine confidence in them and bring about additional regulatory scrutiny. They have limits and trading halts all the time for many reasons.

>>That retail investors are being blamed and vilified for playing the exact same game that all these hedge funds have played and got fat off of for decades is disgusting.

What examples have there been where any hedge fund successfully initiated a short squeeze? I dont know of any within 20 years. This is actually not how they make money at all. They short stocks and go long stocks.

Gambling is all fine and well as long as you size it right. And transferring money from billionaires to everyday Joes sounds great to me too! But let's not make stuff up to justify some moral high ground that doesn't exist here.