HHGttG!! :D

Pretty much anyone can get an IB account (I think the min size is something like k). They are just selling access/technology for markets. How does this make the rich look like assholes?

I think it's hilarious that they did this.

Simple: The means by which a great many investors in the 1% have become wealthy looks to be at the expense of everyone else. The investment classes were bailed out, declared too big to fail, and went largely unpunished for their wild bets involving unregulated derivatives, repackaging of mortgage debt, insurance policies (bets) against mortgage loans failing, speculation and short-selling, etc. This is coupled with them claiming to be "job creators" while the trend has been for the 1%'s wealth increasing while real wages and jobs have been decreasing over several decades.

So "join the 1%" is kind of clueless, if not insulting.

I still don't get it, "join the 1%" isn't clueless at all, it is a direct reference to the banks who control access to the market. IB offers services that compete with banks, which it claims are lower in cost and higher in value.

You seem to just be mashing up anything vaguely financially related into one pile of terrible. The first part of your sentence actually makes sense, but then you go on to cite "speculation" and "short selling" as punishable acts...which really shows you have no idea about any of this stuff.

Every commercial transaction is a bet, people have tried to legislate the difference between 'bets' and 'true transactions' no one has really ever been able to do it. Anyone who runs a business understands why. Markets that don't allow you to borrow (short sell) aren't very useful for a lot of people.

I never said they were punishable acts. They're reasons why people are dicked over by people, in essence, playing with the market in a way that's similar to video poker. Naked short selling (also not punishable, just in case you don't switch tracks well) is something else that really ought to be outlawed, since it's based on a set of circumstances that modern trading practices use like a giant loophole.

And it would be nice if these bets were treated like actual bets. In case you haven't noticed, at least five big banks (whose traders and board members are part of that pesky 1% that don't have their income taxed as actual income; sorry, sunshine, but captial gains is bullshit) bet HUGE, sometimes against themselves, and they lost... until they got the taxpayers (whose home values they screwed) to pay for their losses. If only Vegas worked that way, it'd be even more popular.

Again, any honest look at how the 1% have fared since Nixon vs. the middle classes shows they've helped themselves to a large drum of anal lube with the rest of the country taking it up the ass. Again, "job creators" is a bullshit title, since as their fortunes increased, we should be up to our armpits in plentiful high-paying jobs. I think I'm not the one here who needs a reality check. But I guess the taste of corporate dick is hard to wash out of your mouth.

Further, the "join the 1%" is the same BS the Libertopians keep peddling. "Oh, pity the wealthy businessman whose success is being punished! Lower his taxes, for lo, his wealth will someday be as likened unto yours, even though thou workest at Wal-Mart and will be lucky if you can afford a cardboard box when you retire, unless thou needest a hospital visit first."

Making the lower classes believe that they'll one day be rich or that the wealthy's money will someday trickle down to them is one of the biggest lies ever perpetuated in political circles. If hard work meant long-term wealth, miners would live in mansions.

Jesus,
You are making a number of misrepresentations that demonstrate your financial illiteracy. They need to be corrected to keep the internet free of blither blather.

1. You did imply that short selling and speculation should be punished, by lamenting that the "investment class" (?) went "largely unpunished".

2."In case you haven't noticed, at least five big banks (whose traders and board members are part of that pesky 1% that don't have their income taxed as actual income;"

Bonus and salary are taxed as income, for the great majority of the people you are talking about, the vast majority of their wealth comes from bonus and salary (that's why they keep working). Not to say that there aren't some very very fishy things going on, how does Mitt Romney get 30% annualized return on his family's trust fund? Why do congress members portfolio returns fair better than the average citizen?

I can barley parse the rest of your diatribe. Solely attributing the decline in home values to traders who "screwed" taxpayers is a fallacy. Values are dependent on a number of factors, a big one being federal economic policy.

"Join the 1%" isn't really a serious slogan, IB is basically offering brokerage services and claiming to offer better value (e.g. lower commissions) on services that banks ("the 1%") provide. That's all there is to it, not sure where all the angst about hard working miners comes into the picture. This company is good at what it does, there have been a few successful funds that started off on IB.

Pretty much anyone can get an IB account (I think the min size is something like k).

Yes indeed, 10k is pocket change, anyone can spare that.