AT THE BEGINNING of 2021, a grim period of lockdown and Zoom calls, a small scandal ripped through American capitalism. It concerned shares in a computer game retailer, Gamestop.
Hedge funds, believing that this was a doomed business in an age of downloads, placed large bets that the company’s shares would fall. Small investors decided they were wrong, and began buying the stock, sending its price soaring. Some very rich men faced wipeout, and some very poor people thought they might have hit the jackpot. And then — well, what happened then is.
