I'm sure you can spot the problem — and the solution — yourself. I haven't a clue if it's even possible to gain leverage against the whole stock market on the personal level, but I'm sure we can alleviate the other ailment. ("We"? Not you or me. How many financial specialists are there in the US?) Hence, "classes", not "a handful of lectures". According to your own prognosis, young people today would need a lot of help because their parents would be fucked. Implement one step of the Adulting Program (which is a terrible name, but — "for want of a better term"), and you're in the black. Speaking of which: let me recount. - old folks getting older and leaving jobs, not paying (as many) taxes - young folks getting older and leaving entry-level jobs — and a void in their absence - younger folks working fewer since being fewer, tax income for the state shrinks - older folks will need care for, will receive less since... - everyone sees decrease in health insurance, no one can do a damn thing about it If I follow — and feel free to correct me if I don't — this results in: - young folks getting sicker, which inevitably means decrease in production and, therefore, decrease in GDP - older folks not getting any healthier, but with fewer dollars per illness per head, fewer of the older folks are getting treated, leading to more preventable deaths - younger folks would be forced or lured into working to compensate for the sudden massive void where money used to be 20 years ago - nobody wins, everybody suffers Am I getting near?I'll also point out that we're beyond "how to read a prospectus" here, we're at "how to make passive income in an environment where you have neither the leverage nor the knowledge"
Yeah - adopt a modern, humanitarian system of providing for the elderly. Turning the whole country into stock traders is not a viable solution. There's absolutely zero reason to require people to understand a Bloomberg terminal in order to pay for their retirement. The basic problem is that capitalism has no empathy and empathy is necessary in providing for people in a noncompetitive economy. "How do we take care of a generation of old people" is a civics question yet we're trying to apply market solutions and the shortfall is coming evident on GenX and the millennials.I'm sure you can spot the problem — and the solution — yourself.
That's fair. I was aiming at trying to solve within the current conditions, rather than dealing with hypotheticals. We can teach people how to live with the hand they've been dealt. We can't change what they're being dealt as easily. A curriculum is a summer away. Social changes, especially with a whiff of socialism... you tell me how well that would go. Not saying I'm against it. I'm all for taking care of elderly in a humane fashion. Just saying, as you keep reminding me, that there are real-world obstacles to tackle before the dream comes true.
So this comes full circle: Market investment isn't a zero-sum game: by providing capital to enterprise, enterprise multiplies it and pays a dividend. If the markets can justify their existence, they should always go up. That's the fundamental underpinning of capitalism. Finance professionals (and geeks) separate market success into alpha and beta gains. Beta gains are what you get just by participating in the above. If you throw money at every stock in the market, your money should increase. Beta is what you get just for playing. Alpha gains, on the other hand, are what you get when you make more money than the average schlub. Alpha gains are zero-sum. For you to do better than average, someone else has to do worse. One succinct way to say all market stuff above - percentages diminishing, less returns, yadda yadda - is "diminishing beta gains." You can't educate your way out of that. All you can do is replace your beta with alpha. That's where the name comes from. From a basic game theory standpoint, if you educate all participants so that they can improve their alpha the only thing you will accomplish is making the game harder. It's like computer scams - we've gone from Nigerian princes to spearphishing secondary targets for access to bank accounts. If everyone stayed stupid we'd still be seeing all-caps entreaties for wire transfers. So again: the basic problem is that the baby boomers are outliving the capitalism they created. Most developed nations have some sort of demographic problem but none are as dependent on a free market solution as the United States, which is why I think we're going to have the starkest problems. Social Security is socialism. Medicare is socialism. Frickin' fire departments are socialism. My argument is we need more socialism.
If you ever write or speak about this in public, I'd like to see it: I want to know how well it goes. Not saying it's a bad solution: saying the crowd is tough on that front. Wasn't that one of Bernie Sanders' contention points — that he's a socialist? Because socialism equals communism, obviously, and communism is bad: bad enough that would rather wind up dead than red, isn't that so?Social Security is socialism. Medicare is socialism. Frickin' fire departments are socialism. My argument is we need more socialism.
Yeah - that was an argument against Bernie Sanders. Nonetheless, he just about won the Democratic nomination. Probably would have if the establishment read the tea leaves correctly.