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The Young Turks’ co-hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian took turns mocking and rebuking Scott Galloway, who, during an appearance on MSNBC with Stephanie Ruhle addressed the subreddit WallStreetBets in a remarkable manner. 

The NYU marketing professor commented on the curious trend of MemeStocks that feature AMC, GameStop, and other slagging brands from yesteryear. “Maybe it’s fun. Fine. Maybe it’s a movement, but be prepared to lose 80 to 90 percent of it, and if it’s still worth it, have at it.” Galloway said. “But the biggest loss of capital here will be the human capital of young men sitting and staring at their phone and watching the price of Bitcoin, or the price of AMC.”

Galloway noted the biggest loss in capital will be experienced by “young men who are more prone to gambling addiction, who don’t understand the markets,” and would be better off doing something more productive with their time.  He then compared these small-time investors to “[the] ton of young women who became very depressed by sitting in their rooms looking at Instagram,” leading to cutting and other forms of self-harm.

Kasparian describes Galloway’s appearance as a “sick rant” and points out that depression is already a serious problem in this country, partially owing to the massive inequality driven by the same Wall Street bankers Galloway defends.

“There’s an entire industry, an entire Financial system of people who have built their entire careers and livelihoods

off of playing this game to the detriment of the majority of Americans in this country,” she says. “Now [Galloway] is purposely insulting people and saying, ‘No, don’t get involved in this game that has made so many people at the very top tremendously wealthy — you should focus on bettering your life and joining the faux meritocracy that this country is based on.’ No, I’m not buying any of that. I think that’s a garbage argument.”

Ugur agreed with his co-host, describing Galloway’s dissertation as “almost a perfect representation of boomer mentality and elitist television mentality.” Cenk also points out the way Stephanie Ruhle of the ostensibly liberal MSNBC nods along throughout the segment in what he terms “an orgy of agreement” with Galloway.

“He’s worried about naked shorts on Instagram when he should be worried about naked shorts in the market,” Cenk quipped.

Explaining how intelligent, high-profile individuals like Galloway and Ruhle can be so tone-deaf when it comes to Wall Street excesses and the near-universal cheers that have met the r/wallstreetbets investors’ win over billionaires, Cenk noted that practically all elites hold members of the investor class in rarefied but wholly undeserved esteem.

“They genuinely believe that the people on Wall Street are God’s gift to humanity and that they’re brilliant,” he says, “and not that the rules are rigged in the bankers’ favor. But these are the same guys who crashed

the entire world economy in 2009. And you’re telling me they’re geniuses? But you also believe regular people are trash. They think, ‘Average people are beneath us but the elites have earned everything through a meritocracy.’ They think their money proves they’re all geniuses when in fact their money actually proves that the system is rigged, not that they were geniuses.”

Watch above via Young Turks on YouTube.

Tags: Cenk Uygur, Scott Galloway, The Young Turks