“It is usually agreed,” Lord Keynes wrote in his General Theory, “that casinos should, in the public interest, be inaccessible and expensive. And perhaps the same is true of stock exchanges.” This, I think, is the lesson we are meant to take from the bizarre series of events that culminated in the disappearance of GameStop, a mall retailer, from various commission-free online trading platforms on Thursday morning after its shares rose as high as $480.
Before anything else, a confession: I have probably enjoyed the last two days of absurdity as much as I have any news story of the last four years.
