“It is disheartening when, no matter how well you know the rules and play the game, rules are manipulated once you are in striking distance of winning. Playing chess against the computer made me realize the corollary between the game I played, a recent stock purchase, and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I was two moves away from beating the computer in chess for the first time, when there was an apparent “glitch.” The computer skipped my next move and made two moves in a row, thwarting my strategy and hoisting me by my own petard. Similarly, I made a stock purchase in the publicly traded company, Terrestar Corp, a recently bankrupt company whose spectrum assets were purchased by Dish Networks. I made my purchase after considering several things: the company may strategically file bankruptcy; the amount of debt had; and a valuation of the assets, among other variables. All of my research was accurate. The company did file bankruptcy and the assets were highly coveted, but what I did not consider was that the value of the highly coveted spectrum assets would be devalued by 40%, therefore eliminating any ROI for the common shareholders (the common man). But again, the rules were bent leaving me, unfairly, at a disadvantage. One then thinks to themselves , there is a process to mitigate these discrepancies . Although the common shareholders fought for an independent examination of the newly devalued assets, they were denied.
The chess game glitch against the computer and the stock investment gone bust due to the unexplained devaluation of the assets is an analogy of why the American people are so fed up. No one wants to engage in activities that are impossible to win!
Initially, I thought the Occupy Wall Street movement was an angry bunch of new millennium hippies taking to the streets because they had nothing better to do. As it turns out, they are people just like me, fed up with playing games that cannot be won. I now understand.
Sincerely,
Frustrated American”
