Latest news with #Rustbelt
Forbes
18 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Case Against Gamified Prop Trading
The trading industry stands at a crossroads. One road leads to more gamification, more extraction, more disillusionment. The other leads to professionalism, purpose, and shared upside. In a recent op-ed for the Financial Times, BlackRock Chair and CEO Larry Fink called for the second draft of globalisation. 'The first step,' he said, is in 'helping more people become investors.' Fink outlined how 'the Trump administration's tariffs are the symptom of a backlash to the era of what might be called 'globalism without guardrails.' Global GDP grew more since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 than in all recorded history before it. But the benefits weren't evenly shared. S&P 500 investors saw a return of more than 3,800 per cent. Rustbelt workers did not.' He goes on to argue that 'at the heart of this new model are the capital markets: exchanges where people invest in stocks, bonds, infrastructure, everything. Why? Because markets are uniquely suited to transforming global growth into local wealth.' I couldn't agree more. While Fink was primarily referring to people's ability to invest in markets long-term, it's equally important to make the case for the power of markets in the context of trading. It has never been easier to provide people with a real understanding of stock markets and opportunities to harness their power. But it needs to be done properly. In the post-pandemic world, trading is popular and perilous. From Reddit-fueled meme stocks to Instagram ads promising six-figure incomes in weeks, trading has become a cultural phenomenon. But beneath the glossy surface of fast payouts, slick dashboards, and instant accounts lies a more uncomfortable truth: in the new age of gamified proprietary trading, the trader is no longer the protagonist; they're the product. This is the reality ushered in by platforms like Hola Prime and the explosion of 'funded trader programs.' What began as a promising movement to democratize market access has mutated into a profit-extraction engine dressed up in UX and buzzwords. If the GameStop saga exposed the dangers of payment for order flow, the current state of prop trading is a sequel where the script is even more cynical. The premise of these new platforms is seductive: we'll give you capital to trade without risking your own money. Just pass a simple evaluation, click through a few disclaimers, and you're off to the races. Some now even offer instant accounts: skip the test, trade now, get paid in under an hour. But here's the rub: the business model isn't about helping you succeed. It's about getting you through the door, extracting fees, and quietly setting conditions that ensure most participants fail. The real revenue engine isn't trading profits, it's the fees traders pay for the privilege of chasing them. Most funded trader platforms charge upfront fees for evaluations, with limited transparency and minimal incentive alignment. If you fail (as most do), the firm keeps your money. If you succeed, you're handed capital under highly artificial constraints: inflated spreads, punitive commissions, and execution speeds that are just slow enough to give the house the edge. It's a system rigged for churn. The faster you burn out, the sooner the next aspiring trader can be onboarded and monetized. This isn't proprietary trading; it's proprietary entertainment, where every trader is both contestant and consumer. Gamified dashboards, explosive payout headlines, are engineered to hook you like a Vegas slot machine. All wrapped in a language of empowerment that masks a deeply extractive core. Take Hola Prime's headline-grabbing '1-Hour Payouts.' On paper, it's a breakthrough. In practice, it's table stakes masquerading as a revolution. Speedy payouts are nice, but they're a distraction from the real question: what are you actually building for traders? Are you training them in institutional-grade discipline? Are you teaching risk management? Are you offering a career ladder or a casino floor? Real proprietary trading firms do all of the above. They invest in their traders, not just their branding. They build loyalty through long-term alignment, not short-term gimmicks. At firms like Real Trading, when traders win, the firm wins. There's no fee treadmill, no asymmetry. The incentives are clear, and the traders are treated like the talent they are, not just throughput on a spreadsheet. 'Instant Accounts' skip the evaluation process entirely. That's not innovation, it's abdication. For serious traders, the evaluation is the beginning of the journey. It's where you demonstrate discipline, consistency, and judgment under pressure. It's where a firm learns who you are and whether it can entrust you with capital. By removing it, you lower the barrier, but you also flatten the profession. What's left isn't trading; it's speculation, dressed up in startup lingo. There is real talent in this new generation of retail traders, particularly in emerging markets. These are individuals hungry to learn, to grow, to become professionals. But instead of nurturing them, the current wave of gamified prop firms exploits them. Imagine what could happen if this energy were redirected toward institutional discipline rather than dopamine-fueled churn. If platforms invested in career-building, not just customer acquisition. Real proprietary trading should be a path, not a pit stop. The markets have become faster, more automated, and more unequal. The edge now often lies with those who can deploy algorithms and AI at scale. But amid this high-frequency arms race, something fundamental is being lost: the human trader. Human judgment. Emotional intelligence. Pattern recognition that no bot can replicate. These are the qualities that, when nurtured, complement, if not beat, the work of the machines; especially in moments of market chaos where instinct and experience trump code. Real prop firms recognize this. They treat traders as long-term partners. They offer structured training, risk coaching, and capital scaling that mirrors performance. They don't hand you a lottery ticket; they hand you a roadmap. The trading industry stands at a crossroads. One road leads to more gamification, more extraction, more disillusionment. The other leads to professionalism, purpose, and shared upside. The question isn't whether fast payouts or sleek apps are bad. It's whether they come instead of meaningful development, or in support of it. The next generation of traders deserves more than gimmicks. They deserve mentorship, meritocracy, and the tools to build a future, not just flip a trade. Let's stop turning traders into products and start turning them into professionals.
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Solar has taken off in red states. Trump's funding freeze is causing panic
Mike Mullett strains to see through sheets of misty rain while driving through working-class neighborhoods of Columbus, a quaint town in southern Indiana. He's trying to find the senior center, multi-family homes and rent-assisted properties – more than 530 in total – that he and many other locals hope will receive $4.42m in federal funding for solar electricity projects. But now that money is at risk. On 20 January, Donald Trump paused billions of dollars of federal grant funding for clean energy and other projects around the country initiated by the Biden administration's Green New Deal. 'We've been slavishly working on a plan since April 2023 that would provide solar energy to hundreds of households in two low- and moderate-income Columbus neighborhoods,' says Mullett. The project was expected to be rolled out in April, with previously approved funding thought to have been made available by 14 February. 'Unless the Trump administration makes a 180-degree turn on funding, that expectation will obviously not be met.' Related: Record-breaking growth in renewable energy in US threatened by Trump The funding is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency's $7bn Solar for All program, which is meant to help low-income families save money on electricity costs. About $117m was set for solar projects and initiatives in Indiana. Communities across Indiana, a solidly Republican midwestern state, were set to benefit more than most from the Biden administration's ambitious clean energy push in what was an ultimately failed effort to win votes in Rust belt states whose voters have abandoned Democratic party politicians in recent decades. By August 2024, $7.8bn in private investment for a host of clean energy projects including solar and battery production had come to Indiana, spurred in part by the promise of federal grants and local tax-abatement schemes. But Trump has followed through on his election campaign promise to roll back clean energy initiatives, referring to Biden's efforts as the 'Green New Scam'. Leading Republicans have backed his move, despite the potential economic risks to states where the president is popular. 'The executive branch of government in our system has the right to evaluate how executive branch agencies are operating,' the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on 5 February. On 10 February, a federal judge issued an order for the Trump administration to unfreeze its funding hold. Indiana isn't alone in its drive for solar energy. Solar projects ranging from utility scale to single housing efforts have proved hugely popular in red states. Texas has the second-highest number of installed solar power units, after California, enough to power more than 4.5m homes. Florida follows close behind. A quarter of a trillion dollars – 80% of the total funding for green energy manufacturing and other initiatives – was to go to projects in Republican-leaning congressional districts across the US. At 3.4% of its total, Indiana, where Trump won by almost 19 points in November's presidential election, produces more state electricity from solar than Democrat-leaning states such as Illinois, Washington and New Hampshire, according to one industry organization. 'The $130m in total Solar for All funding awarded for Indiana would transform Indiana's solar market by allowing more than 10,000 families in low-income communities around the state to directly benefit from the electric bill savings and resilience afforded by local solar,' says Zach Schalk, the Indiana program director at Solar United Neighbors Action, a non-profit that has helped invest $7.1m in solar initiatives in the state. 'It's really a non-partisan issue if you look at the survey polling across the US. We've had elected officials of both parties [in Indiana] sign letters of support. We know that this is a popular program.' But some question the importance of federal dollars in fueling solar's growth at the utility scale, and more broadly its ability to meet the enormous demand for electricity. 'I've had a number of the solar [utility] companies in and in many instances they are saying that [the tax rebates and other federal funding] are nice, but the industry has matured quite a bit [to the extent] that they still have enough [profit] margin without it,' says Indiana Republican representative Ed Soliday, who has backed laws supporting solar initiatives in the state. 'What's shaking out is that commercial solar is advancing far more than the rooftop equivalent. You can't run a manufacturing plant on rooftop solar panels.' Emails sent to the Indiana Republican party and a state senator representing Columbus asking if party members believed the funding pause could risk solar electricity projects and disrupt business developments were not responded to. In Columbus, Trump's move has been demoralizing for Mullett and others who have made a huge effort to secure funding that would see solar electricity infrastructure installed at 320 community households, 204 multi-family households and seven single-family project households. 'Most of us are retirees and volunteers,' he says. 'I would say [we've spent] 20 hours a week at a minimum; sometimes there were weeks when we were doing 40 to 60 hours a week.' He says that if the federal funding is lost, private funding that has been committed to help pay for the project would be gone too. 'If the pending litigation in federal district courts must run its course all the way to the US supreme court, the delay in the rollout of the [funding] would certainly be measured in months, perhaps extending even into 2026,' he says. According to one study, Indiana residents have seen the seventh-highest electricity rate increase in the country. Nearly 83% of its electricity generation is sourced by natural gas or coal plants. Still, the time and effort Mullet and other community members have invested in the project means they aren't about to give up. He says the work will continue even as the funding remains in flux. 'Doing this in a way that low-income households can become involved, it's literally a 50-year-old dream of mine,' he says.
The Guardian
17-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Solar has taken off in red states. Trump's funding freeze is causing panic
Mike Mullett strains to see through sheets of misty rain while driving through working-class neighborhoods of Columbus, a quaint town in southern Indiana. He's trying to find the senior center, multi-family homes and rent-assisted properties – more than 530 in total – that he and many other locals hope will receive $4.42m in federal funding for solar electricity projects. But now that money is at risk. On 20 January, Donald Trump paused billions of dollars of federal grant funding for clean energy and other projects around the country initiated by the Biden administration's Green New Deal. 'We've been slavishly working on a plan since April 2023 that would provide solar energy to hundreds of households in two low- and moderate-income Columbus neighborhoods,' says Mullett. The project was expected to be rolled out in April, with previously approved funding thought to have been made available by 14 February. 'Unless the Trump administration makes a 180-degree turn on funding, that expectation will obviously not be met.' The funding is part of the US Environmental Protection Agency's $7bn Solar for All program, which is meant to help low-income families save money on electricity costs. About $117m was set for solar projects and initiatives in Indiana. Communities across Indiana, a solidly Republican midwestern state, were set to benefit more than most from the Biden administration's ambitious clean energy push in what was an ultimately failed effort to win votes in Rust belt states whose voters have abandoned Democratic party politicians in recent decades. By August 2024, $7.8bn in private investment for a host of clean energy projects including solar and battery production had come to Indiana, spurred in part by the promise of federal grants and local tax-abatement schemes. But Trump has followed through on his election campaign promise to roll back clean energy initiatives, referring to Biden's efforts as the 'Green New Scam'. Leading Republicans have backed his move, despite the potential economic risks to states where the president is popular. 'The executive branch of government in our system has the right to evaluate how executive branch agencies are operating,' the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on 5 February. On 10 February, a federal judge issued an order for the Trump administration to unfreeze its funding hold. Indiana isn't alone in its drive for solar energy. Solar projects ranging from utility scale to single housing efforts have proved hugely popular in red states. Texas has the second-highest number of installed solar power units, after California, enough to power more than 4.5m homes. Florida follows close behind. A quarter of a trillion dollars – 80% of the total funding for green energy manufacturing and other initiatives – was to go to projects in Republican-leaning congressional districts across the US. At 3.4% of its total, Indiana, where Trump won by almost 19 points in November's presidential election, produces more state electricity from solar than Democrat-leaning states such as Illinois, Washington and New Hampshire, according to one industry organization. 'The $130m in total Solar for All funding awarded for Indiana would transform Indiana's solar market by allowing more than 10,000 families in low-income communities around the state to directly benefit from the electric bill savings and resilience afforded by local solar,' says Zach Schalk, the Indiana program director at Solar United Neighbors Action, a non-profit that has helped invest $7.1m in solar initiatives in the state. 'It's really a non-partisan issue if you look at the survey polling across the US. We've had elected officials of both parties [in Indiana] sign letters of support. We know that this is a popular program.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion But some question the importance of federal dollars in fueling solar's growth at the utility scale, and more broadly its ability to meet the enormous demand for electricity. 'I've had a number of the solar [utility] companies in and in many instances they are saying that [the tax rebates and other federal funding] are nice, but the industry has matured quite a bit [to the extent] that they still have enough [profit] margin without it,' says Indiana Republican representative Ed Soliday, who has backed laws supporting solar initiatives in the state. 'What's shaking out is that commercial solar is advancing far more than the rooftop equivalent. You can't run a manufacturing plant on rooftop solar panels.' Emails sent to the Indiana Republican party and a state senator representing Columbus asking if party members believed the funding pause could risk solar electricity projects and disrupt business developments were not responded to. In Columbus, Trump's move has been demoralizing for Mullett and others who have made a huge effort to secure funding that would see solar electricity infrastructure installed at 320 community households, 204 multi-family households and seven single-family project households. 'Most of us are retirees and volunteers,' he says. 'I would say [we've spent] 20 hours a week at a minimum; sometimes there were weeks when we were doing 40 to 60 hours a week.' He says that if the federal funding is lost, private funding that has been committed to help pay for the project would be gone too. 'If the pending litigation in federal district courts must run its course all the way to the US supreme court, the delay in the rollout of the [funding] would certainly be measured in months, perhaps extending even into 2026,' he says. According to one study, Indiana residents have seen the seventh-highest electricity rate increase in the country. Nearly 83% of its electricity generation is sourced by natural gas or coal plants. Still, the time and effort Mullet and other community members have invested in the project means they aren't about to give up. He says the work will continue even as the funding remains in flux. 'Doing this in a way that low-income households can become involved, it's literally a 50-year-old dream of mine,' he says.
