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I may not be old enough to remember the good old days, and there probably weren't that many, but I get nostalgic for when the stock market meant something to people. I mean, money makes the world go 'round, don't get me wrong, but recently money's made the world go pear-shaped.
See, markets are places to buy and sell goods, and the stock market used to be similar, except it funded the production of those goods. More recently, it became entirely about making money and thus the collapse. You can't just hedge your funds and siphon out cash indefinitely.
The problem is based in human nature, though it manifests in money's fungibility. What that means is that people get greedy for money precisely because it lacks inherent meaning. So what's the answer?
An incomplete answer is that folks should invest only in things they have interest in. This is one of the assumptions Adam Smith made in conceptualizing the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace. The theory is that popular businesses will automatically survive; this theory doesn't take into account the possibility of impossible or unsustainable models, like making money from nothing in a zero-sum game. But please keep in mind that inasmuch as we can determine what's "right," it won't always match what's popular.
EDIT, Disclaimer: I have not read Smith, and I really should have.
See, markets are places to buy and sell goods, and the stock market used to be similar, except it funded the production of those goods. More recently, it became entirely about making money and thus the collapse. You can't just hedge your funds and siphon out cash indefinitely.
The problem is based in human nature, though it manifests in money's fungibility. What that means is that people get greedy for money precisely because it lacks inherent meaning. So what's the answer?
An incomplete answer is that folks should invest only in things they have interest in. This is one of the assumptions Adam Smith made in conceptualizing the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace. The theory is that popular businesses will automatically survive; this theory doesn't take into account the possibility of impossible or unsustainable models, like making money from nothing in a zero-sum game. But please keep in mind that inasmuch as we can determine what's "right," it won't always match what's popular.
EDIT, Disclaimer: I have not read Smith, and I really should have.