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> Who are the 99% who don't invest but are regularly very negatively effected? Literally anyone that never interacted with the financial markets voluntarily, w

> Who are the 99% who don't invest but are regularly very negatively effected? Literally anyone that never interacted with the financial markets voluntarily, with a speculative intent. I include for example, people with IRAs. > It's like the mysterious "elites" There's nothing misterious here. It's banks, hedge funds, financial institutions. It's all the actors that caused the 2008 crisis, among the others. We have names, patterns and everything needed to analyze the issue, but I don't certainly require the average person to have to understand the financial markets in order to be able to be aware that something is deeply wrong in the way our economy is structured. Hedge funds themselves don't seem to fully grasp how the market works!

deleted 6y ago
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LatteLazy 6y ago
The problem is, the is basically no one left who doesn't fit your definition of elite. Who do you know who's never used a credit card, a car/student loan, a mortgage? Do they also not have a pension or a job at a publicly traded company? Have they never bought insurance or opened a bank account. What most people don't get is that they rely on financial markets 100 times a day. That's why when markets wobble there is a shit storm. That's why they get bailed out. I'd like a more equal distribution of wealth. I'd prefer that doctors and teachers got paid more rather than traders. But ultimately there are very good reasons things are the way they are. You can say Fuck them all, but then we'll have to go back to living like people in the second world. This is WHY ordinary people need to understand things like finance (or trade or geopolitics). They watch the TV, they see something they don't like, and instead of understanding its a least bad outcome (eg 2008) or that their behaviour in part caused it (eg 2008) they just write it off as a conspiracy. If they're lucky it ends there. If not, some liar comes along and capitalises on their belief (eg trump) promising to "bring back out jobs" "drain the swamp" "make the elite pay" etc. Since he's a liar only peddling convient but untrue stories, he won't deliver. Which is disappointing but actually better than if he did.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  > The problem is, the is basically no one left who doesn't fit your definition of elite. No, banks, hedge funds, billionaires, financial institutions are all still there. > What most people don't get is that they rely on financial markets 100 times a day. That's why when markets wobble there is a shit storm. That's why they get bailed out. I strongly disagree with what you're trying to say. I can't accept in any way a view of the world that leaves us with no one taking responsiblity. If someone is earning billions on the markets, someone also need to be responsible when the market crashes due to speculation. Otherwise it's just a broken system where there's no incentive to act responsibly. > You can say Fuck them all, but then we'll have to go back to living like people in the second world. I'm not convinced about this in the slightest. Finance has grown way out of its league and has become a god of its own. We can say fuck them all, reorganize our economy and still live in a prosperous country.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    If you're that convinced that we don't need these organisations, stop using them. Defer buying a house or a car until you can pay cash, leave your pension and invest in gold, become self employed and refuse any loan or insurance. That's my point here: the way you and I and 99% of people live day to day relies on billionaires to fund things and speculators to keep markets liquid. This is the core cause of a lot of our issues and the ultimate reason for things like bailouts. If we didn't need speculative finance to fund house building, we wouldn't have had to bail them out. So all we have to do is start buying houses in cash and that need disappears an we can stop bailing things out. But the dirty truth is that as much as people hate bailouts, they hate paying for things and saving and being responsible far more. This is why (for instance) Germany, with a high savings rate and minimal consumerism has so few billionaires and didn't need to spent much bailing out banks.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

LatteLazy 6y ago

The problem is, the is basically no one left who doesn't fit your definition of elite. Who do you know who's never used a credit card, a car/student loan, a mortgage? Do they also not have a pension or a job at a publicly traded company? Have they never bought insurance or opened a bank account. What most people don't get is that they rely on financial markets 100 times a day. That's why when markets wobble there is a shit storm. That's why they get bailed out. I'd like a more equal distribution of wealth. I'd prefer that doctors and teachers got paid more rather than traders. But ultimately there are very good reasons things are the way they are. You can say Fuck them all, but then we'll have to go back to living like people in the second world. This is WHY ordinary people need to understand things like finance (or trade or geopolitics). They watch the TV, they see something they don't like, and instead of understanding its a least bad outcome (eg 2008) or that their behaviour in part caused it (eg 2008) they just write it off as a conspiracy. If they're lucky it ends there. If not, some liar comes along and capitalises on their belief (eg trump) promising to "bring back out jobs" "drain the swamp" "make the elite pay" etc. Since he's a liar only peddling convient but untrue stories, he won't deliver. Which is disappointing but actually better than if he did.

pietrovismara 6y ago
> The problem is, the is basically no one left who doesn't fit your definition of elite. No, banks, hedge funds, billionaires, financial institutions are all still there. > What most people don't get is that they rely on financial markets 100 times a day. That's why when markets wobble there is a shit storm. That's why they get bailed out. I strongly disagree with what you're trying to say. I can't accept in any way a view of the world that leaves us with no one taking responsiblity. If someone is earning billions on the markets, someone also need to be responsible when the market crashes due to speculation. Otherwise it's just a broken system where there's no incentive to act responsibly. > You can say Fuck them all, but then we'll have to go back to living like people in the second world. I'm not convinced about this in the slightest. Finance has grown way out of its league and has become a god of its own. We can say fuck them all, reorganize our economy and still live in a prosperous country.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  If you're that convinced that we don't need these organisations, stop using them. Defer buying a house or a car until you can pay cash, leave your pension and invest in gold, become self employed and refuse any loan or insurance. That's my point here: the way you and I and 99% of people live day to day relies on billionaires to fund things and speculators to keep markets liquid. This is the core cause of a lot of our issues and the ultimate reason for things like bailouts. If we didn't need speculative finance to fund house building, we wouldn't have had to bail them out. So all we have to do is start buying houses in cash and that need disappears an we can stop bailing things out. But the dirty truth is that as much as people hate bailouts, they hate paying for things and saving and being responsible far more. This is why (for instance) Germany, with a high savings rate and minimal consumerism has so few billionaires and didn't need to spent much bailing out banks.