Wall Street gets stonked as Reddit Games the Games stop stock.

San Francisco decides to crack down on schools named after Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

And John Kerry is reporting for climate duty.

I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN for peace of mind. Whenever you go online, visit ExpressVPN.com. Slash, Ben, we'll get to all the news in one moment. First, got to remind you. I just said it. You need to get ExpressVPN. Why? Well, Big Tech is not going to protect you. The reality is that your information is being used by Big Tech in order to monetize their platforms. They are then using those platforms to shut down perspectives that you like and to censor people that you want to hear from. So why exactly should you contribute your information to them so they can make money off of you? Well, you can prevent all of that just by using ExpressVPN. Did you believe a VPN isn't for you because you can use the Internet just fine with that one? Well, anytime you go online, your ISP can see every site you're visiting. Are you confused about how it works?

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Visit Express. Ben, get three extra months for free on a one-year package. Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-V-P-N.com slash Ben's. Get three extra months for free. Visit expressvvpn.com slash Ben right now. All righty. So the big news of the day is that essentially a bunch of memesters just took down half of Wall Street. Okay, so a couple things, just to start off. One, it can be hilarious and also not good for society, right? These two things can be true at once. It is hilarious when your high school fellows, TP, your high school gym teacher's house. Like, that's really, really funny. Okay, also, not a wonderful thing to do. It doesn't provide a lot of social value. So a lot of people today I'm seeing are cheering this.

Oh, look, they're taking down the hedge fund bros. Those hedge fund those hedge fund those hedge fund those hedge funders deserve it because of what they've been doing with their short selling. Okay. So let me first explain what the what is happening. I'm going to give the story. Then I'm going to explain exactly how all of this works. And I'm also going to explain what a stock market is for.

Because I think there is a fundamental disconnect between what people think the stock

market is there because I think there is a fundamental disconnect between what people think the stock market

is there to do and therefore what people do when they trade in the stock market and what the

stock market actually accomplishes and why it provides its social good. The underlying theme that a lot

of people seem to be carrying forth today is that people who trade in the stock market, people who are day traders, hedge fund guys, the investment bankers, all those guys are bad people. They are bad people because they are, quote-unquote, speculators. They're not adding value to the system. It seems to be the idea that undergirds all of the animus that is leading people to cheer wildly for what all of these

Reddit folks are now doing with regard to the GameStop stock. But here's what you need to

keep in mind when it comes to the stock market, just like any other market. People who work in a

market do so to make money, but because free markets also provide social value in that transactions

generally provide a value to both sides and also provide social value in that transactions generally provide a value

to both sides and also provide other information to the more general society, okay, that is what

folks in the stock market are doing.

Every time you go to the supermarket and you buy an apple, a couple of things are happening.

One, you're getting an apple.

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