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> I cannot use my 0.0000001% share to do anything other than sell it to another person. You can borrow against it (it's called "margin"). People do it all the

> I cannot use my 0.0000001% share to do anything other than sell it to another person. You can borrow against it (it's called "margin"). People do it all the time. The utility of a stock market is providing a nearly frictionless method of moving capital to its most efficient use. It's as great an invention as money is - suppose you want a toaster, but the toaster company doesn't want apples. Good luck setting up an n-way barter with the orange farmer and several other people to try and get a toaster. A simpler answer is if the stock market had no utility nobody would trade stocks. But they do, millions do. Are they all fools, or have you made a mistake?

crimsonalucard 8y ago
That is what I am saying. The movement of capital in the stock market has no meaningful form of utility. You move it because you want to buy paper at a lower price and sell it at a higher price. It's similar to the utility generated by a casino. This is very different from the way people use money. The movement of cash is usually done in the name of purchasing something that has actual physical utility. The movement of stocks especially HFT has no utility. I don't buy tesla stocks because I can actually do anything with it. I buy tesla stocks for the sole purpose of gambling.. to sell a share to someone else who wants to make the same gambling play. The entire market consists of these entities with essentially the same strategy. No production of goods is involved... >You can borrow against it (it's called "margin"). People do it all the time. You can borrow against cash as well. Though usually when you borrow against cash you're buying a house to live in rather than borrowing more useless paper stocks to sell at higher prices. Basically you are borrowing money to use at a casino when you use margins. Imagine an entire economy built around casinos. Would that economy be productive? No. The exchange of money in casinos intrinsically does not involve the creation or exchange of goods. Where would all of our GDP go if an economy consisted of only casinos? It would go to shit. Same if the economy consisted of only stock markets. But if the economy consisted of only farms...? well, food has utility. The infrastructure surrounding casinos is similar to the server farms mining bitcoin and polluting the air. It's a questionable use of capital. >A simpler answer is if the stock market had no utility nobody would trade stocks. But they do, millions do. Are they all fools, or have you made a mistake? Do not underestimate the power of human stupidity. Let's say I have an scheme for making money. I'm going to print out a bunch of useless paper and start selling that paper for 100x what its worth. Then I have another idea... as little as it is, paper actually has some value so I can optimize this scheme by making a digital platform for selling these pieces of paper as pieces of encrypted information. I call the first piece the genesis block.... aka bitcoin. Make no mistake, the utility of a bitcoin is equivalent to the utility of a counterfeit dollar and their origins are identical: both were created out of thin air. You have to be pretty dumb to buy a piece of paper at 100x the price let alone an abstract digital representation of that paper (bitcoin). Yet people do buy bitcoin and they do make money off of it. It's collective stupidity that allows an individual to profit... from a broader perspective, however, no actual utility is generated off of the mining of bitcoin just like how no utility is generated over the exchange of stocks.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  > That is what I am saying. The movement of capital in the stock market has no meaningful form of utility. I know that's what you're saying. And you are utterly wrong. > Do not underestimate the power of human stupidity. I.e. you're smarter than everyone in the financial markets. If you're right, you'd get a Nobel Prize in economics. But I suppose the Nobel committee is too stupid to do that, too :-) > I'm going to print out a bunch of useless paper and start selling that paper for 100x what its worth. Go right ahead and do that. There's no law against it. Please post back how that works out.
  - crimsonalucard 8y ago
    >I know that's what you're saying. And you are utterly wrong. No you are wrong. >I.e. you're smarter than everyone in the financial markets. If you're right, you'd get a Nobel Prize in economics. But I suppose the Nobel committee is too stupid to do that, too :-) No, I'm just smarter than you. But that doesn't take much effort. You've admitted loss by switching to insults which we can either continue to trade or you can step up and counter my arguments. You don't have the spine to step up, you're nothing. >Go right ahead and do that. There's no law against it. Please post back how that works out. It's called an example. Figure it out. Also it's already been done. It's called stocks. It's called money, it's called Bitcoin.
    - dang 8y ago
      Whoa. This sort of personal bile is totally off limits for HN, as I'm sure you know, irrespective of how wrong or provocative some other comment may be. This one is easily a bannable offense. Looking through your history I notice other cases where you've been uncivil as well. I'm not going to ban you this time, but if you continue to break the site rules, we'll have to. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended from now on.
      - crimsonalucard 8y ago
        Can you give me the ability to flag people? I'd rather do that at least if I can't respond to something deliberately provocative.

crimsonalucard 8y ago

That is what I am saying. The movement of capital in the stock market has no meaningful form of utility. You move it because you want to buy paper at a lower price and sell it at a higher price. It's similar to the utility generated by a casino. This is very different from the way people use money. The movement of cash is usually done in the name of purchasing something that has actual physical utility. The movement of stocks especially HFT has no utility. I don't buy tesla stocks because I can actually do anything with it. I buy tesla stocks for the sole purpose of gambling.. to sell a share to someone else who wants to make the same gambling play. The entire market consists of these entities with essentially the same strategy. No production of goods is involved... >You can borrow against it (it's called "margin"). People do it all the time. You can borrow against cash as well. Though usually when you borrow against cash you're buying a house to live in rather than borrowing more useless paper stocks to sell at higher prices. Basically you are borrowing money to use at a casino when you use margins. Imagine an entire economy built around casinos. Would that economy be productive? No. The exchange of money in casinos intrinsically does not involve the creation or exchange of goods. Where would all of our GDP go if an economy consisted of only casinos? It would go to shit. Same if the economy consisted of only stock markets. But if the economy consisted of only farms...? well, food has utility. The infrastructure surrounding casinos is similar to the server farms mining bitcoin and polluting the air. It's a questionable use of capital. >A simpler answer is if the stock market had no utility nobody would trade stocks. But they do, millions do. Are they all fools, or have you made a mistake? Do not underestimate the power of human stupidity. Let's say I have an scheme for making money. I'm going to print out a bunch of useless paper and start selling that paper for 100x what its worth. Then I have another idea... as little as it is, paper actually has some value so I can optimize this scheme by making a digital platform for selling these pieces of paper as pieces of encrypted information. I call the first piece the genesis block.... aka bitcoin. Make no mistake, the utility of a bitcoin is equivalent to the utility of a counterfeit dollar and their origins are identical: both were created out of thin air. You have to be pretty dumb to buy a piece of paper at 100x the price let alone an abstract digital representation of that paper (bitcoin). Yet people do buy bitcoin and they do make money off of it. It's collective stupidity that allows an individual to profit... from a broader perspective, however, no actual utility is generated off of the mining of bitcoin just like how no utility is generated over the exchange of stocks.

skookumchuck 8y ago
> That is what I am saying. The movement of capital in the stock market has no meaningful form of utility. I know that's what you're saying. And you are utterly wrong. > Do not underestimate the power of human stupidity. I.e. you're smarter than everyone in the financial markets. If you're right, you'd get a Nobel Prize in economics. But I suppose the Nobel committee is too stupid to do that, too :-) > I'm going to print out a bunch of useless paper and start selling that paper for 100x what its worth. Go right ahead and do that. There's no law against it. Please post back how that works out.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  >I know that's what you're saying. And you are utterly wrong. No you are wrong. >I.e. you're smarter than everyone in the financial markets. If you're right, you'd get a Nobel Prize in economics. But I suppose the Nobel committee is too stupid to do that, too :-) No, I'm just smarter than you. But that doesn't take much effort. You've admitted loss by switching to insults which we can either continue to trade or you can step up and counter my arguments. You don't have the spine to step up, you're nothing. >Go right ahead and do that. There's no law against it. Please post back how that works out. It's called an example. Figure it out. Also it's already been done. It's called stocks. It's called money, it's called Bitcoin.
  - dang 8y ago
    Whoa. This sort of personal bile is totally off limits for HN, as I'm sure you know, irrespective of how wrong or provocative some other comment may be. This one is easily a bannable offense. Looking through your history I notice other cases where you've been uncivil as well. I'm not going to ban you this time, but if you continue to break the site rules, we'll have to. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended from now on.
    - crimsonalucard 8y ago
      Can you give me the ability to flag people? I'd rather do that at least if I can't respond to something deliberately provocative.