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Whenever I see posts or leftist commentary saying the stock market only benefits the ultra-rich and wealthy CEOs it shows a downright ignorant view of capital m

Whenever I see posts or leftist commentary saying the stock market only benefits the ultra-rich and wealthy CEOs it shows a downright ignorant view of capital markets. Working class Americans have lots of skin in the game in the market through 401k's, retirement plans, pensions, traditional investments. The ideology that it's a rigged system for the rich to stay rich and oppress the middle and lower class is a load of nonsense. > Maybe it's just because I'm a pinko-European Maybe.

subway 8y ago
> Whenever I see posts or leftist commentary saying the stock market only benefits the ultra-rich and wealthy CEOs Nobody has said anything of the sort here.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  The article practically opened with it. Did you read it?
  - subway 8y ago
    Yeah. Twice now, just to make sure I wasn't missing something. Nowhere is it even remotely implied that the market only benefits the ultra-rich and CEOs.
    - mrep 8y ago
      Fifth paragraph (and nodesocket said "rich to stay rich", not just ultra-rich and ceos): Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.
      - subway 8y ago
        That statement is pointing out the existence of a feedback loop in need of dampening. It's not saying the market needs to go away, or that it only benefits a minority. To imply it's a cry that the game was designed to be rigged is a straw-man.
    - castlecrasher2 8y ago
      Got it, so you're one of those "nowhere does it state precisely what I've typed, so you're wrong. Ignore the statement that is essentially saying the same thing" literalists.
      - dang 8y ago
        Please don't stoop to personal attack, even when another comment is annoying. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've posted uncivilly elsewhere too, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766899. That's not allowed here, and we eventually ban accounts that do it. If you'd review the guidelines and post civilly and substantively only from now on, we'd appreciate it.
ryandrake 8y ago
Fewer than half of Americans own any stock at all [1], including indirect holdings, like 401(k)s. So, while it may not be entirely "for the rich", most Americans have no stake in the stock market. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/for-roughly-half-of-americans-the-stock-markets-record-highs-dont-help-at-all/?utm_term=.50b3f361f9e3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/for-r...
- nodesocket 8y ago
  I would be interested to see how excluding lower class affects this percentage, only middle class and above. I suspect it would skew the percentage much higher. I am a firm believer that the free and less regulated stock market and a smart and balanced portfolio is the best wealth creation tool Americans can tap into. The alternatives of savings accounts and CD's are laughably low yielding.
  - ionised 8y ago
    > I would be interested to see how excluding lower class affects this percentage, only middle class and above. I suspect it would skew the percentage much higher. You say this like you think it somehow proves a point. > I am a firm believer that the free and less regulated stock market and a smart and balanced portfolio is the best wealth creation tool Americans can tap into. The alternatives of savings accounts and CD's are laughably low yielding. And I am a firm believer that most of these people do not have the resources or know-how to even begin doing this. Most are living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm amused at the idea of loosening regulations on financial services industries ever has any effect other than a massive transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy.
    - nodesocket 8y ago
      > And I'm amused at the idea of loosening regulations on financial services industries ever has any effect other than a massive transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy. Fair and that's the fundamental difference in our political ideology. I subscribe that the role of US government is not to transfer wealth or interfere with the free market. If I am in a room with another person and I have five dollars in my pocket and the other person has one dollar, am I suppose to give the other person two dollars to make everybody whole? The writer of this article and bill might think so.
velcrovan 8y ago
> Working class Americans have lots of skin in the game in the market through 401k's, retirement plans, pensions, traditional investments. No, they don't, this is a common misunderstanding. Including all 401ks, IRAs, directly-held stock, mutual funds, etc., the bottom 80% of Americans own less than 4% of all equities. The bottom 60% own 0.1% of all equities.[1] [1]: https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/who-gains-from-dow-20-000-ba07555e5f12 https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/who-gains-from-dow-20-000-ba...
- nodesocket 8y ago
  I'm not convinced looking at overall percentage owernership is the right and accurate way to determine if working class Americans have skin in the game. Of course the factory workers $30,000 in the market is going to be miniscule compared to the billionaire, but doesn't means it's not critical to the factory worker.
  - velcrovan 8y ago
    We were originally discussing who benefits from higher stock prices; the answer is overwhelmingly, by a huge, huge, margin, those benefits go to the top 10% of Americans by wealth. The fact that a tiny portion of workers also own some stocks doesn't change that fact. And the fact that $30k in a retirement account is critical to a factory worker, doesn't help your case much. That pittance will have been saved out of already-stagnant wages that have been kept down by corporate management in favor of executive pay and stock buybacks, and will be nearly worthless for retirement purposes no matter what the stock market does. All you've done is reiterate the all-too-common disaster scenario for the working class that comes from favoring shareholders over workers. The workers' real skin in the game is their labor and the value they produce from it, which is increasingly being kept back from them. They can have everything to gain and nothing to lose by gaining mandatory representation on the board.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    That's somewhat the issue at hand, right? It's everything to the factory worker, but it's a rounding error to anybody involved in making decisions that effect that factory worker's everything. Using that definition of "skin in the game," I'm not sure what the point of the phrase is.
ionised 8y ago
Whenever I see someone use the word 'leftist' unironically in their opening sentence I just assume that what is coming next is a torrent of ideological rhetoric with nothing of substance to back it up.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  It's usually not "leftist" anyway, it's just common sense. Workers should have some representation in their workplace since they DO ALL THE WORK. The business simply cannot exist without the workers. Inequality declines as Union membership rises[1], aka worker representation. https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality-rises/ https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequalit...
  - mamon 8y ago
    Workers have a right to get paid for their work, but that’s pretty much it. They don’t have a right to influence company policies because they do not own it. Asking workers for their opinion is just politeness, but not something company necessarily has to do.
    - genericid 8y ago
      By that logic, a monarch's subjects did not have a right to influence kingdom policies because they did not own it.
      - jlawson 8y ago
        A monarch's subjects don't choose to become subjects and they typically can't leave. Workers can choose from many different employers, or become self employed.
        genericid 8y ago
        So you support a dictatorship as long as it permits emigration? Not that monarchies actually had anything to do with that, serfdom was abolished in most places long before them.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
84% of all stocks are owned by the 10% richest in America. It really does only benefit the already rich. It's ignorant to think people with 401k's or retirement plans are gaining any real money. It's rigged for the rich, I promise. http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/ http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...
- spork12 8y ago
  It's rigged for the rich because with more capital to invest you can lower your risk. Joe six pack with $50k to invest is going to be at a disadvantage against players with millions who can hedge their positions with options and diversify.
  - refurb 8y ago
    Joe six pack can buy Vanguard's total stock market ETF with only a few hundred dollars. Fully diversified in terms of equity.
  - tryptophan 8y ago
    Completely false. You can get exposure to every stock in the world for like ~$80. You can buy options to hedge for as little as ~$1000(literally the same ones that billionaires would buy). Joe six pack's biggest problem is their own ignorance.
- zaroth 8y ago
  If a poor person invests 10% of their money in the S&P500 no-load index fund, do they see different IRR than the billionaire who invests 10% of their money in the S&P500 no-load index fund? No system has ever provided such high quality, low cost financial instruments with great liquidity and marginal trading costs accessible to anyone with a checking account. The financial markets we have today are equitable and highly accessible. They are anything but rigged.
  - astral303 8y ago
    The fact that you can put together a sentence that says "if a poor person invests 10% of their money" betrays that you have no actual understanding of poor people economics.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

subway 8y ago

> Whenever I see posts or leftist commentary saying the stock market only benefits the ultra-rich and wealthy CEOs Nobody has said anything of the sort here.

castlecrasher2 8y ago
The article practically opened with it. Did you read it?
- subway 8y ago
  Yeah. Twice now, just to make sure I wasn't missing something. Nowhere is it even remotely implied that the market only benefits the ultra-rich and CEOs.
  - mrep 8y ago
    Fifth paragraph (and nodesocket said "rich to stay rich", not just ultra-rich and ceos): Because the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households own 84% of American-held shares, the obsession with maximizing shareholder returns effectively means America’s biggest companies have dedicated themselves to making the rich even richer.
    - subway 8y ago
      That statement is pointing out the existence of a feedback loop in need of dampening. It's not saying the market needs to go away, or that it only benefits a minority. To imply it's a cry that the game was designed to be rigged is a straw-man.
  - castlecrasher2 8y ago
    Got it, so you're one of those "nowhere does it state precisely what I've typed, so you're wrong. Ignore the statement that is essentially saying the same thing" literalists.
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't stoop to personal attack, even when another comment is annoying. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've posted uncivilly elsewhere too, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766899 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766899. That's not allowed here, and we eventually ban accounts that do it. If you'd review the guidelines and post civilly and substantively only from now on, we'd appreciate it.

ryandrake 8y ago

Fewer than half of Americans own any stock at all [1], including indirect holdings, like 401(k)s. So, while it may not be entirely "for the rich", most Americans have no stake in the stock market. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/for-roughly-half-of-americans-the-stock-markets-record-highs-dont-help-at-all/?utm_term=.50b3f361f9e3 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/18/for-r...

nodesocket 8y ago
I would be interested to see how excluding lower class affects this percentage, only middle class and above. I suspect it would skew the percentage much higher. I am a firm believer that the free and less regulated stock market and a smart and balanced portfolio is the best wealth creation tool Americans can tap into. The alternatives of savings accounts and CD's are laughably low yielding.
- ionised 8y ago
  > I would be interested to see how excluding lower class affects this percentage, only middle class and above. I suspect it would skew the percentage much higher. You say this like you think it somehow proves a point. > I am a firm believer that the free and less regulated stock market and a smart and balanced portfolio is the best wealth creation tool Americans can tap into. The alternatives of savings accounts and CD's are laughably low yielding. And I am a firm believer that most of these people do not have the resources or know-how to even begin doing this. Most are living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm amused at the idea of loosening regulations on financial services industries ever has any effect other than a massive transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy.
  - nodesocket 8y ago
    > And I'm amused at the idea of loosening regulations on financial services industries ever has any effect other than a massive transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the wealthy. Fair and that's the fundamental difference in our political ideology. I subscribe that the role of US government is not to transfer wealth or interfere with the free market. If I am in a room with another person and I have five dollars in my pocket and the other person has one dollar, am I suppose to give the other person two dollars to make everybody whole? The writer of this article and bill might think so.

velcrovan 8y ago

> Working class Americans have lots of skin in the game in the market through 401k's, retirement plans, pensions, traditional investments. No, they don't, this is a common misunderstanding. Including all 401ks, IRAs, directly-held stock, mutual funds, etc., the bottom 80% of Americans own less than 4% of all equities. The bottom 60% own 0.1% of all equities.[1] [1]: https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/who-gains-from-dow-20-000-ba07555e5f12 https://medium.com/@MattBruenig/who-gains-from-dow-20-000-ba...

nodesocket 8y ago
I'm not convinced looking at overall percentage owernership is the right and accurate way to determine if working class Americans have skin in the game. Of course the factory workers $30,000 in the market is going to be miniscule compared to the billionaire, but doesn't means it's not critical to the factory worker.
- velcrovan 8y ago
  We were originally discussing who benefits from higher stock prices; the answer is overwhelmingly, by a huge, huge, margin, those benefits go to the top 10% of Americans by wealth. The fact that a tiny portion of workers also own some stocks doesn't change that fact. And the fact that $30k in a retirement account is critical to a factory worker, doesn't help your case much. That pittance will have been saved out of already-stagnant wages that have been kept down by corporate management in favor of executive pay and stock buybacks, and will be nearly worthless for retirement purposes no matter what the stock market does. All you've done is reiterate the all-too-common disaster scenario for the working class that comes from favoring shareholders over workers. The workers' real skin in the game is their labor and the value they produce from it, which is increasingly being kept back from them. They can have everything to gain and nothing to lose by gaining mandatory representation on the board.
- pwinnski 8y ago
  That's somewhat the issue at hand, right? It's everything to the factory worker, but it's a rounding error to anybody involved in making decisions that effect that factory worker's everything. Using that definition of "skin in the game," I'm not sure what the point of the phrase is.

ionised 8y ago

Whenever I see someone use the word 'leftist' unironically in their opening sentence I just assume that what is coming next is a torrent of ideological rhetoric with nothing of substance to back it up.

prolikewh0a 8y ago
It's usually not "leftist" anyway, it's just common sense. Workers should have some representation in their workplace since they DO ALL THE WORK. The business simply cannot exist without the workers. Inequality declines as Union membership rises[1], aka worker representation. https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequality-rises/ https://www.epi.org/news/union-membership-declines-inequalit...
- mamon 8y ago
  Workers have a right to get paid for their work, but that’s pretty much it. They don’t have a right to influence company policies because they do not own it. Asking workers for their opinion is just politeness, but not something company necessarily has to do.
  - genericid 8y ago
    By that logic, a monarch's subjects did not have a right to influence kingdom policies because they did not own it.
    - jlawson 8y ago
      A monarch's subjects don't choose to become subjects and they typically can't leave. Workers can choose from many different employers, or become self employed.
      - genericid 8y ago
        So you support a dictatorship as long as it permits emigration? Not that monarchies actually had anything to do with that, serfdom was abolished in most places long before them.

prolikewh0a 8y ago

84% of all stocks are owned by the 10% richest in America. It really does only benefit the already rich. It's ignorant to think people with 401k's or retirement plans are gaining any real money. It's rigged for the rich, I promise. http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-richest/ http://time.com/money/5054009/stock-ownership-10-percent-ric...

spork12 8y ago
It's rigged for the rich because with more capital to invest you can lower your risk. Joe six pack with $50k to invest is going to be at a disadvantage against players with millions who can hedge their positions with options and diversify.
- refurb 8y ago
  Joe six pack can buy Vanguard's total stock market ETF with only a few hundred dollars. Fully diversified in terms of equity.
- tryptophan 8y ago
  Completely false. You can get exposure to every stock in the world for like ~$80. You can buy options to hedge for as little as ~$1000(literally the same ones that billionaires would buy). Joe six pack's biggest problem is their own ignorance.
zaroth 8y ago
If a poor person invests 10% of their money in the S&P500 no-load index fund, do they see different IRR than the billionaire who invests 10% of their money in the S&P500 no-load index fund? No system has ever provided such high quality, low cost financial instruments with great liquidity and marginal trading costs accessible to anyone with a checking account. The financial markets we have today are equitable and highly accessible. They are anything but rigged.
- astral303 8y ago
  The fact that you can put together a sentence that says "if a poor person invests 10% of their money" betrays that you have no actual understanding of poor people economics.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]