Okay. So, I don't post on Reddit much, but I would love to hear community feedback on an idea I have had brewing.
Context: I live in a city—Washington DC— with huge wealth inequality between the college-educated and high school-educated classes, which has made pockets of the city nearly unaffordable for the lower and middle classes. This, in turn, has led to food deserts (https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Food-ACCESS-in-DC.pdf) in these neighborhoods. Further, the grocery retailers in the city offer minimum wage jobs (save for trader joe's, which I believe starts at $15/hr), that cannot sustain a financially healthy life in the city. Also, SHOCKER!, it is the BIPOC communities that take the brunt of this burden. In DC, white households have 81 times the wealth of Black households and 22 times the wealth of Latinx households. Further, 87 percent of the overall wealth is held by white families, even though the city's white population is only 45% of the total population.
Okay, now to my thought: The Gamestop Reddit scenario piqued my interest in the masses' power to manipulate the stock market. Whereas the Gamestop situation served as a petri dish without benefitting many (save for the few that invested at an opportune time), I believe there is an opportunity with a similar, consistent market manipulation where the proceeds are used to invest directly in community-building projects that specifically target weak-spots in our capitalistic-friendly economy. Specifically, the investment earnings could be used to purchase grocery retail space in food desert geographic locations, keep prices low for customers, and provide well-above-market hourly wages for floor employees/managers (starting at $25/hr for employees, $40/hr for managers), as well as full benefits for part-time employees.
How it would work: This would be a day-by-day investment strategy. The evening before, we can target the stock we want to manipulate. Then, before market open the following morning, we can post that stock to the investment community, and they can load up on that stock for the day. Then, before the market closes, we sell off the proceeds. The return would be put into a fund supporting the grocery venture.
That's the thought. It's very simple and would need a lot of organizing around it, but it is about time we use this market to serve the means of the people, rather than to benefit corporate profit and already-wealthy shareholders.
Would love your feedback.