> The entire system is completely broken. It is literally designed to make the markets keep going up, which as usual benefits the wealthy far more than the aver

> The entire system is completely broken. It is literally designed to make the markets keep going up, which as usual benefits the wealthy far more than the average person. And people who are even middle class barely really benefit from it. While the lower class and poor don't benefit at all. Yes and no. Inflation/markets going up is a way to prevent boomers/gen X from sitting on stacks of money hidden away as a rainy day fund. It does benefit newer generation as it allows them to be paid more than their parents and give them access to credit to do stuff like buy houses. You want markets to keep going up, there is nothing good about deflation. > I choose not to participate in "investing" because it's not investing. It's literally gambling. You can't control what a company does. You can't control if a pandemic hits just when you want to retire and your assets as cut in half. You need to transition your assets progressively as you get older. If you hit 60 years old and your assets are still only in the S&P500 index then you have failed to diversify and yes, your high-risk portfolio is still high-risk. That's not gambling, that's poor planning. There are securities that can offer a lot more stability, at the cost of smaller overall returns. > Instead of real retirement plans, higher guaranteed social security.. they have shifted nearly all the risk to the individuals and essentially forced them to just put money in the markets which artificially inflate the value of everything. I've already addressed this above. > And they just hope the ponzi scheme continues. The stock market is not a Ponzi. The profits of the companies are what you are buying when taking a share of said company. It's an overall straightforward understanding. If you don't want to speculate on higher-risk assets such as tech stocks, you can buy banking/industrial/natural resources stocks which usually pay dividend based on their revenues.