2 ms·

I know, but what has that to do with anything?

dragontamer 6y ago
You assert that the Stock Market offers nothing. But in practice, and what has been true since the 1500s, is that the Stock Market: 1. Provides initial funding for large, risky projects. 2. These projects (and jobs), such as the sailing jobs associated with those 1500s Treasure ships, would not exist without investment from a large number of investors. 3. The rewards (such as the Treasure Ship successfully returning from India) offers exponential growth. $100 investment becomes $200. Or $200 initial investment becomes $400, due to the difference in prices between Europe and India. As such, all investors of all classes who can afford a share can benefit. (Ex: A millionare may offer $100k, but a billionaire may offer $100 million. Both are awarded by proportion of the initial investment). 4. The value of the shares change based on information. If you hear that the Treasure Ship has sunk, the value is zero. If you hear that the Treasure Ship has made successful stops in Madagascar, India, or is nearly home, the value of those shares increases (less chance of failure, since its almost done with the trip). To fairly trade the shares innately means changing the value of the shares as various information comes in. --------- So my point is multi-fold. 1. Exponential growth isn't really from the Stock Market per se, but from the opportunities that arise from pooling money together. 2. The Stock Market makes those trades possible. 3. There are other ways to make such investments (such as US Government). But its not very clear that the government should be the one solely responsible for these sorts of risky behaviors. For better or worse, people understand the risks on the Stock Market (ex: if the Treasure Ship sinks, the value of that stock loses everything). If a Government-sponsored ship sinks, that's a huge loss for the Government. These sorts of risks are almost better handled by private citizens: the risk-takers, the Entrepreneurs, rather than stable governments or workers. 4. It is natural for the value of shares to change.
- runarberg 6y ago
  > You assert that the Stock Market offers nothing. I never said that, I said it was crap. Things that are crap can still offer things of value, they just do so in a crappy way. Global capitalism is a prime example of that. I did say—in a different thread—that to a worker, the stock market offers nothing of value. I still stand by that. To a worker the shareholder-board of director relationship is such that it monopolizes job opportunities. The average worker has no choice but to hand over the fruit of their labor to shareholders and hope that their union will successfully negotiate a better wage—or worse hope they are allowed to unionize. As to your example of the Dutch treasure ships, we don’t live in a Mercantile world any more. We now have insurance companies which offers insurance on ventures like these. And if the risk is to great, the Dutch traders could ask their government to insure them to a point (and in return pay higher parts of their profits in taxes). There are more questions that arise when you bring this mercantile example to the modern setting: How are the Dutch traders the once that are making the millions off of this scheme? I would want to ask how much are the farmers growing and drying the spice making from this? Perhaps they deserve more. Perhaps the farmers should band together and use a more favorable distributor that offers them a fair share of the profits, rather then relying on these shady colonialists. Maybe the profits being made up in Holland shouldn’t be going there in the first place. Maybe we should standardize shipping such that distributors could rely on a global trade network, say by buying a container at a freight that departs from Bangkok and heads towards Rotterdam every 2 weeks. Then maybe the Dutch treasure ships won’t be needed at all, and their old unfair business model can rot along with their falling stock prices and their aging ships.
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    > I did say—in a different thread—that to a worker, the stock market offers nothing of value. The ship-hands of the hypothetical 16th century Treasure Ship, what job would they have if investors didn't give them a ship to work on? > I would want to ask how much are the farmers growing and drying the spice making from this? Well, without Europeans to consume those spices, I presume they'd also be out of the job. Because they were growing those spices hoping that someone would come by and trade with them. That's why India was exporting spices: because they had far more / excesses of spices, while Europeans were importing spices (they couldn't grow those spices in Europe). The trade, and Treasure Ship, in fact benefited everyone. --------- > Maybe we should standardize shipping such that distributors could rely on a global trade network, say by buying a container at a freight that departs from Bangkok and heads towards Rotterdam every 2 weeks. Those ships and trading networks cost money. How will you build those networks? Answer: raise money, then with that money, buy ships. You can't just magically assume ships appear from nothingness. Someone has to make those, someone has to be the risk-taker to assume the risk when disasters (ex: hurricane sinks treasure ship) happens. ---------------- Lets take another example: Solar Panels. How do you expect for solar panels to be deployed? The Stock Market is really good at that: tons of solar panel companies got literal billions of dollars so that Solar Panels could be bought, and they hope for a slow-and-steady profit over the next 20 years (or whatever the lifespan of solar panels is). This is true for solar panel manufacturers, utility solar panel deployers, as well as solar-panel installers. All of them got large investments from the modern stock market. Sure, the US Government put down a few incentives, but the stock market created the possibility. ---------- How about this. Try to build a 20MW Solar Panel array. Maybe not "really build it", but really try to think through the steps of how you'd raise money and actually build the darn thing. And no magic thinking. You can't just imagine that money / resources pop out of no where. If you get money, tell me where you get the money from, and why they'd give it to you. If you say the government will do it, explain how easy it will be to make a law to increase taxes so that the government has the funds to take on the project. (Maybe you have some special legal scheme that you think everyone would agree too. I dunno, I can't think of anything on that front. I'd probably have the government tap into the Bond market honestly...)
    - 6y ago

You assert that the Stock Market offers nothing. But in practice, and what has been true since the 1500s, is that the Stock Market: 1. Provides initial funding for large, risky projects. 2. These projects (and jobs), such as the sailing jobs associated with those 1500s Treasure ships, would not exist without investment from a large number of investors. 3. The rewards (such as the Treasure Ship successfully returning from India) offers exponential growth. $100 investment becomes $200. Or $200 initial investment becomes $400, due to the difference in prices between Europe and India. As such, all investors of all classes who can afford a share can benefit. (Ex: A millionare may offer $100k, but a billionaire may offer $100 million. Both are awarded by proportion of the initial investment). 4. The value of the shares change based on information. If you hear that the Treasure Ship has sunk, the value is zero. If you hear that the Treasure Ship has made successful stops in Madagascar, India, or is nearly home, the value of those shares increases (less chance of failure, since its almost done with the trip). To fairly trade the shares innately means changing the value of the shares as various information comes in. --------- So my point is multi-fold. 1. Exponential growth isn't really from the Stock Market per se, but from the opportunities that arise from pooling money together. 2. The Stock Market makes those trades possible. 3. There are other ways to make such investments (such as US Government). But its not very clear that the government should be the one solely responsible for these sorts of risky behaviors. For better or worse, people understand the risks on the Stock Market (ex: if the Treasure Ship sinks, the value of that stock loses everything). If a Government-sponsored ship sinks, that's a huge loss for the Government. These sorts of risks are almost better handled by private citizens: the risk-takers, the Entrepreneurs, rather than stable governments or workers. 4. It is natural for the value of shares to change.

runarberg 6y ago
> You assert that the Stock Market offers nothing. I never said that, I said it was crap. Things that are crap can still offer things of value, they just do so in a crappy way. Global capitalism is a prime example of that. I did say—in a different thread—that to a worker, the stock market offers nothing of value. I still stand by that. To a worker the shareholder-board of director relationship is such that it monopolizes job opportunities. The average worker has no choice but to hand over the fruit of their labor to shareholders and hope that their union will successfully negotiate a better wage—or worse hope they are allowed to unionize. As to your example of the Dutch treasure ships, we don’t live in a Mercantile world any more. We now have insurance companies which offers insurance on ventures like these. And if the risk is to great, the Dutch traders could ask their government to insure them to a point (and in return pay higher parts of their profits in taxes). There are more questions that arise when you bring this mercantile example to the modern setting: How are the Dutch traders the once that are making the millions off of this scheme? I would want to ask how much are the farmers growing and drying the spice making from this? Perhaps they deserve more. Perhaps the farmers should band together and use a more favorable distributor that offers them a fair share of the profits, rather then relying on these shady colonialists. Maybe the profits being made up in Holland shouldn’t be going there in the first place. Maybe we should standardize shipping such that distributors could rely on a global trade network, say by buying a container at a freight that departs from Bangkok and heads towards Rotterdam every 2 weeks. Then maybe the Dutch treasure ships won’t be needed at all, and their old unfair business model can rot along with their falling stock prices and their aging ships.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  > I did say—in a different thread—that to a worker, the stock market offers nothing of value. The ship-hands of the hypothetical 16th century Treasure Ship, what job would they have if investors didn't give them a ship to work on? > I would want to ask how much are the farmers growing and drying the spice making from this? Well, without Europeans to consume those spices, I presume they'd also be out of the job. Because they were growing those spices hoping that someone would come by and trade with them. That's why India was exporting spices: because they had far more / excesses of spices, while Europeans were importing spices (they couldn't grow those spices in Europe). The trade, and Treasure Ship, in fact benefited everyone. --------- > Maybe we should standardize shipping such that distributors could rely on a global trade network, say by buying a container at a freight that departs from Bangkok and heads towards Rotterdam every 2 weeks. Those ships and trading networks cost money. How will you build those networks? Answer: raise money, then with that money, buy ships. You can't just magically assume ships appear from nothingness. Someone has to make those, someone has to be the risk-taker to assume the risk when disasters (ex: hurricane sinks treasure ship) happens. ---------------- Lets take another example: Solar Panels. How do you expect for solar panels to be deployed? The Stock Market is really good at that: tons of solar panel companies got literal billions of dollars so that Solar Panels could be bought, and they hope for a slow-and-steady profit over the next 20 years (or whatever the lifespan of solar panels is). This is true for solar panel manufacturers, utility solar panel deployers, as well as solar-panel installers. All of them got large investments from the modern stock market. Sure, the US Government put down a few incentives, but the stock market created the possibility. ---------- How about this. Try to build a 20MW Solar Panel array. Maybe not "really build it", but really try to think through the steps of how you'd raise money and actually build the darn thing. And no magic thinking. You can't just imagine that money / resources pop out of no where. If you get money, tell me where you get the money from, and why they'd give it to you. If you say the government will do it, explain how easy it will be to make a law to increase taxes so that the government has the funds to take on the project. (Maybe you have some special legal scheme that you think everyone would agree too. I dunno, I can't think of anything on that front. I'd probably have the government tap into the Bond market honestly...)
  - 6y ago