Wally-Street

Isn’t that what it seems like today?

Wall Street looks a lot more like Wally World than it looks like the financial center of our world.

I have always thought that playing the stock market was more akin to white collar gambling than it is to being a legitimate business. I have a brother in law who is a day trader and I know that what he does isn’t any different than what they do in Vegas everyday, and with all the smoke and mirrors being put up by the people at the top of the financial game it’s a lot more like playing in an Indian casino than it is Vegas. In fact I bet you have better odds in an Indian casino than you do on Wall Street, unless of course you are one of the connected insiders.
When the stock market began I thought it was to help the common person buy stock in a company they liked and wanted to be a part of… so they could own a small piece of it as an investment. The money they invested would grow as the company grew. From what I understand, today it has evolved into something total different. With very few exceptions, owning stock in a company today has very little to do with what the company they invested in will look like in ten or twenty years. The only thing that matters is what the quarterly reports look like so the stock price goes higher, even if it means robbing from Peter to pay Paul with total disregard for the long term future viability of the company. It is more like owning play money that you trade amongst the other Monopoly game players as you roll the dice and make your way around the board.
Doesn’t that sound like a better description of playing Wall Street than calling it “investing”? Just the common use of the words “Playing Wall Street” makes it sound like a game!
I am no financial genius but it appears to me that the only ones making real money on Wall Street are the CEO darlings that live in the pockets of all the Wall Street bankers. They make tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year at the expense of all the common people they have tricked into playing their game. Yes, I realize that there are a lucky few who also hit it big, just like there are a lucky few who pull the handle on the big money slots in Vegas and hit it big. I watch my day trader brother in law go from rich to poor in a continual oscillating rhythm month after month.

IT IS INSANITY at its best!

I think the easiest solution for our entire country is to shut the whole darn thing down and start over. If some one wants to buy stock in a company let them do it like they did in the old days. If they invest in a company it’s because it is a growing viable entity, making long range strategic plans to grow bigger. And the people at the top are making decisions based on the best long term interests of the company, not the share holders interests and the Wall Street bankers who want to turn and burn their stock certificates for the next big IPO.