Look at the "CLOWN-FREE ZONE" thread. A "clown", in their definition, is anyone who is optimistic about the stock market and invests without knowing very much about what they're doing, which is almost everybody. This same group of bears has moved around from thread to thread over the years, including recently on a thread called "all clowns must be destroyed", which they abandoned in favor of the current "Clown-Free zone" which is moderated, thus allowing them to keep anyone who disagrees with them from posting. They would protest that this is not true, and that they only ban people who disagree rudely or disrespectfully. However, in fact it is true. They are at times suspended from SI themselves for the use of foul language and ad-hominem posts.
In a real sense they're a hate group: they hate anyone who remains optimistic about markets and/or has made money from tech stocks. They're uniformly extreme right-wingers, make frequent crude sexist jokes, are conspiratorial in their thinking (i.e., the Federal government is deliberately injecting unreasonable amounts of liquidity specifically to maintain a stock bubble and doing other evil manipulations, gold is the only safe place to be, etc.). But of course from their own point of view, they're just a bunch of jocular, easy-going, good-natured frat guys joking around over a few beers. They claim "not to take themselves very seriously". It's the usual militia mindset.
However, these guys are far from Yahoo-caliber posters. Though most are obnoxious, many are also very intelligent and much more financially sophisticated than the majority of posters on SI (some are financial professionals). I wouldn't want my daughter to marry one, but I've learned a lot over the years from following their discussion.
--QS |
