The Reform UK party leader said he is “with the ordinary traders” in the so-called Reddit Revolution, in which millions of small-time investors have collectively taken on giant hedge funds through buying heavily shorted stocks such as Gamestop and AMC — causing massive losses on Wall Street.
The driving force behind the Brexit movement said a “new kind” of economic populism has emerged with WallStreetBets — the Reddit group behind the movement — but that it is ultimately based on the longstanding feeling amongst the masses that “we’re run and governed by people, whether they work in the civil service, giant businesses, big banks, politics, much of the media, they’re all the same people.”
“They don’t understand the conversations that we have every day and of course when it comes to money they’re all in it for themselves,” Farage added.
Mr Farage said that the actions were taken by financial services firm Robinhood, which blocked traders from buying stocks in GameStop, AMC and others, demonstrated that the market was being “openly rigged” in “favour of the big guys, in favour of the
establishment and against the little people”.
Farage went on to say that the financial service sector and the government are “all in bed together”, pointing to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who previously served as the head of the Federal Reserve.
Ms Yellen has been revealed to have received over $800,000 in speaking fees from Citadel, a hedge fund that bailed out Melvin Capital, one of the hedge funds that has incurred heavy losses after taking out large short positions against GameStop.
“We don’t know what advice she gave, we don’t know what made the brokers stop taking buy orders,” Farage noted.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Yellen not recusing herself, highlighting the fact that she is a woman in office as an achievement in itself and adding that “It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone she was paid to give her perspective and advice before she came into office.”
Mr Farage concluded by saying that “maybe the establishment this time bit off more than they can chew”, noting the bipartisan calls for investigations into Robinhood from the likes of Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
He said that the establishment is in trouble because “they haven’t just got the Trumpites screaming, they’ve got the Trumpites now linked up with those on the left, both with common cause about the way that big money, big banks, big politics work together in their favour and against ordinary folk.”
