Stock market is Ponzi scheme and set up for insider’s the rest of us are just pawns they milk.

And therein you have the big elephant in the room that so many refuse to see — The Working Poor.

The GOLDEN RULE: Those that have the GOLD make the rules.

I learned long ago that the only ones that actually know what is going on are the very wealthy. (And I do not mean those with a few million.) I mean CEO's that earn $25 million a year and get stock options worth $100 million. Those guys.

They are in a special club and not likely to screw up by telling the rest of us anything. However I know a retired CEO that said, after many glasses of wine that the reason the stock market is back at Record highs despite Covid, no travel and millions of small business owners gone is:

1. Major Corporations can borrow money at ZERO interest rates. This is free money because they set up repayment far into the future while paying executives huge bonuses NOW.
2. Small businesses are crushed and their market share will eventually go to Major Corporations.
3. Safe retirement investments like CD's pay almost nothing tempting people to invest in the Stock Market with some of their savings.
4. The Dow has dropped OIL/Energy from their calculations. Oil/Energy is the TRUE MEASURE of everything as everything runs on OIL (No matter what you might want to believe) Oil/Energy stocks are down 50%. Exactly where we truly are.
5. Big Corporations will benefit no matter the election results. (I can't say why as that would trigger the forum sensors.)

Spot on
 

I think your spot on with your prediction. Time will tell.

Don't claim that "You keep these people poor ... ". I am not keeping anyone poor. You, of course, fail to point out that 2% make minimum wage and that people move up and down in economic classes throught their life. I started out pretty much destitute when I was young but I didn't stay there for long. Many, not all, who are stuck in the lowest economic classes are there because of bad decisions they made. Do you want to avoid being poor? Finish high school, get a job, and don't have children before you are married. Marriage does wonders for your financial prospects.

Very true. Most of the successful people in our country did not start off that way. They went to school graduated made good financial decisions and worked hard.

Expect to have a minimum wage job all your life and you are well along the way to meet your expectations

We’re witnessing a Paradigm shift in our life’s and a new normal will emerge at the end. If a corporation can cut its footprint by having its employees work from home and increase profits. Other than Defense manufacturing and final assembly of autos what do we still make in the USA?
The talking heads in Washington state the pandemic require that we bring back all medical manufacturers RIGHT like that’s going to happen. The big pharmaceutical combined have been screwing us for years manufacturing drugs every where but in the USA yet charging us enormous prices.
Very interesting times ahead.

The problem is never that simple. There are many college grads who are making minimum wage right now. Due to the pandemic there are also far more people with no income at all right now through no fault of their own. However, raising the minimum wage is also going to raise prices and eliminate jobs and cause more businesses to fail. It is a very complex problem. Also paying someone 15.00 an hour in NYC is a lot different than paying someone 15.00 an hour in Mississippi. I am not in favor of one size fits all solutions.

Very little in life is simple.

Why get a degree in something (and amass a huge debt) if it will be difficult to find a job paying a good salary?

Raising the minimum wage sounds nice but go into a grocery lately? Look at all the automated cashier stations. Raise the minimum wage and less cashiers.

Trick is to find something that will be in demand and stay in demand which typically will pay a better salary.

Very well said. Been thinking along similar lines. Did not understand the rationale (or believe it) with the stock market's rapid rise. I believe we are a long way from normal.

maybe yes, maybe no, but the market is a function of global liquidity and corporate expectations. Liquidity, or money in the system has exploded recently. So if the excess liquidity goes into the high quality stocks, in general, that means that the active money goes into the higher weighted components of the SP500. Remember, passive or index funds, in which many have their retirement accounts invested, are price insensitive buyers. Active management are price sensitive buyers and sellers and determine the price of individual equities. So how is an active manager to beat the index, if that is his benchmark? by buying 80% index fund, and the last 20% his favorites to beat the return and the large cap weighted stawks. This is called closet indexing or a tilted portfolio to beat an index return.

So with most of the money going into the indexes and large cap weighted stocks as the strongest to survive the economic recession, the indexes appear to be "going crazy" Today is a correction but also the election is coming up and there looms a constitutional crises of a legal happy president trying to cause chaos to nullify the election. (my prediction of the future, and the future hasn't finished being written on this election, so save your typing if you are going to tell me i am wrong.) which may increase volatility and selling due to the uncertainty as the election nears. in bull times, buy the rumor and sell the news. IN bear market times, sell the rumor and by the outcome.

However, the work from home will be temporary in mass, so lets not extract long term outcomes from a short term influence. all pandemics have an end, and this one will as well. The issue is always how fast and at what damage. the worst is past for the virus, but there never has been herd immunity for a corona virus, nor a reliable vaccine, so expect the return to the office to be slow over time with some set backs of course. Also from being in corporate discussions about back to work, people adapt, and are creative so expect new solutions which one hasn't thought of before to surface to add to productivity.

And as always the future is uncertain, sometime more uncertain than at other times.

sportsguy

Interesting analysis, who knows what the changes due to the virus will ultimately bring but think work from home will be around for quite awhile bringing some interesting changes to the economy and our lives.

With the downturn today there is talk of a Minsky moment. That would not be good.

Chi, you made me look that up. :) I just read a rather lengthy article about it. Such is my exciting 2020 life — in my house — reading Investopedia articles.

The old bull has been running way too long. Besides, this feels like a frenzy. Unsustainable.

It’s been a house of cards for a couple of years, propped up by trillions of dollars generated by those corporate tax cuts being used by companies to buy back their own stock.

There is a quote that I use sometimes. (I probably have already used it in this thread. I know have used it in other threads. But it bears repeating.) “Unrestrained greed is not only bad morals, it’s bad economics.”

Cassandra Boomer

I agree to some extent. However, raising minimum wage has not increased prices in states that have already done so. So you can just check that off your list of potential problems.

However, I agree that paying someone $15 in NYC is different than the same in Mississippi. I feel FEDERAL minimum wage needs to be increased - $7.25 isn't a reasonable minimum wage in any state or municipality in the country. Notice I'm not even saying liveable - I'm saying reasonable.

I feel that $10 minimum wage nationwide is reasonable - and states would be free as they already are, to make it higher if they wish. Minimum wage was created to provide a LIVEABLE wage for women and young workers, who - up until that point, were working in sweatshops and unable to pay the minimum bills (rent, food, clothing, heat and water). There was no federally established minimum wage until the 1930's, when Roosevelt implemented the New Deal.

Minimum wage was $3.80 in 1990, 30 years ago. Minimum wage was set to $7.25 in 2009 - 11 years ago. And there are a lot of exceptions to that minimum, including agriculture workers, workers who have "special needs" (the mentally disabled) and people who work for tips. If you're under 20 years old, federal law says you only have to be paid $4.25/hour for the first 3 months of employment. After that they have to pay you at least $7.25/hour.

It's time for Minimum Wage to start catching up with the cost of living in the USA. It should catch up to the -lowest- cost of living. In other words - find out where it's cheapest to live. And raise the Federal minimum wage to accommodate that. Then let the states deal with their own minimums above that amount.

Jobs were not added or increased employees previously let go were recalled. Still approximately 25 million yet to be recalled

I agree that 10.00 an hour would be reasonable and probably not have major negative repercussions. Then states that have higher cost of living could adjust. If only government could pass a helpful bill without expensive and needless pork attached we might get somewhere.

The problem with such a large increase is companies will decide jobs not worth that much and will find ways to eliminate them.

Once upon a time people got paid to pump your gas. Now more and more cashiers in fast food restaurants are going away being replaced by computer terminals.

WE use IP Vanish works well and not expensive..

We were fortunate to sell at the high earlier this year reinvested and bought the lows just got out of the market again yesterday. With stock buybacks Fed buying junk paper and this past month the US had the biggest monthly trade deficit ever. We’ve agreed to sit out the market for a while, made mor than we expected this year.

It's amazing how many people report how they perfectly timed the market after the fact.. :1rotfl:

The stock market is the stock market...it goes up and it goes down. If you can time it...you were just lucky once or twice

IMHO if you are still depending upon the stock market at this point in your life to get by...just maybe you didn't make all the right financial moves or plan all that well

if that is the case, I hope that you make it though whatever is going to happen okay...I wish no one unhappiness or financial struggles

I'm thinking that they teach investing for your retirement in high school as a required course...or at least the power of money and time

Wonder how many people here know what the rule of 72 is?

I like when so called investment advisers invite people for a free dinner and show them how they call all of the downturns with their super duper computer program.

Than they show you a chart of how the market does not do as well as it really does over time so you are better off with an annuity paying a guaranteed 3-4%. Of course the commission allows them to live rather nicely.

Yep, probably the same ones that go to Vegas and say the broke even:coolsmiley:

My brother in law used to tell us what a great gambler he was. Always telling us he won a few thousand dollars but funny thing never did say when he lost.

funny how they never do talk about the losses...until they lose their home

Oops. Is resurrecting this thread the day before the markets are having a serious correction similar to the golf announcer's curse, or does it show that this site actually has an impact on the stock markets? The Street and investment professionals want to know. lol

Yup. Such a sad story.

That was the average life expectancy in 1974.

nope not even close, will give a hint and it is related to investments.

The "Rule of 72" doesn't really have anything to do with this thread subject, given that it is just a simple way to determine how long an investment will take to double, given an "estimated" fixed annual rate of interest. The key being that it relies on a variable, the expected ROR, to derive the number of years for that doubling and as can be seen by the gyrations of all of the markets recently - no one really knows what that variable will actually be.

That was sarcasm Sheldon, sarcasm. :ohdear:

Not just interest is taken into account.

If the stock market on average goes up say 8% a year for the past 50 years and lets say you want to have a million dollars in investments by the time you retire in 30 years it gives you an idea of how much you need to put into investments each year.

Of course in the short run the results will vary greatly.

It is a very handy tool.

The number of posts you strive to make in a day? :1rotfl:

Nah not even close. Some day when everything we would like to do opens up again my post count will drop off substantially.

Does the word “Ponzi” ring a bell?

You would call the stock market a ponzi scheme? Sorry no way.

Now if you wanted to call the beginning of social security a ponzi scheme would not argue with you.

Yes I do believe today’s stock market is a “ legal” Ponzi scheme but we share the same opinion of SS. The winners in today’s market are being funded by tomorrow’s losers or future investors if you prefer. That said for the sake of my grandchildren I hope I’m wrong.

Stocks aren't anything like a Ponzi scheme.

Stocks Aren’t a Ponzi Scheme — Oblivious Investor

"In the last two years, one assertion I’ve heard over and over is that the stock market a giant Ponzi scheme — it only works if everybody continues to feed it money, and it collapses when people take their money out. A similar assertion is that the stock market is just a “greater fool game,” in which stocks’ only value lies in the hope that you can sell them at a higher price to a greater fool at some point in the future.

Both claims are nonsense.


Stocks Have Inherent Value

If the public at large decided that they wanted nothing to do with stocks, and they all pulled out (and this is, to a lesser extent, what goes on in severe bear markets), stocks wouldn’t become worthless. Yes, they’d be "worth less," but not "worthless."