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I see your Wikipedia quote and raise you one from BankRate: "Investors take a systematic approach to growing their wealth, buying assets with reasonable levels

I see your Wikipedia quote and raise you one from BankRate: "Investors take a systematic approach to growing their wealth, buying assets with reasonable levels of risk in exchange for long-term growth. Speculators, on the other hand, buy assets that may experience rapid growth but can also lose their entire value if they go out of favor... Popular assets such as stocks and bonds can be investments or speculative assets, depending on how you approach them." [1] > An investor is someone who buys into financial vehicles with the intent of making more money. OK, fair enough, you did say "buys into financial vehicles", which excludes playing the slots. Regardless, and if for no other reason than to debate with a shared vocabulary, I still contend that it's important to distinguish between someone who takes calculated risks based on thorough research and industry knowledge vs. someone who does the Wall Street equivalent of "playing a hot tip at the race track". If you agree with that, how do you propose we do that, if not with different terms for different concepts? And if you don't agree that the distinction is important, how do you propose that someone looking for a money manager make their criteria clear to others? EDIT: I wouldn't base your opinion of who is or isn't an investor on what the IRS says. This is the same organization which said that buying a clarinet for your child is a medical expense, after an orthodontist argued that playing it helped correct their kid's overbite. [2] 1. https://www.bankrate.com/investing/investing-vs-speculating https://www.bankrate.com/investing/investing-vs-speculating 2. https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/tax-deductions-and-credits/10-strange-but-legitimate-federal-tax-deductions/L6A6QzGiV https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/tax-deductions-and-cred...

maximinus_thrax 4y ago
> I still contend that it's important to distinguish between someone who takes calculated risks based on thorough research and industry knowledge vs. someone who does the Wall Street equivalent of "playing a hot tip at the race track" I don't know, is it important to make that distinction? What's so special about this? Is this some sort of protected guild? How do you distinguish between someone who went to college, majored in CS, writes protocol-level code professionally and holds 10 patents vs someone who went to a bootcamp, copy-pastes code from the internet while working in a web shop writing PHP extensions for wordpress? > I wouldn't base your opinion of who is or isn't an investor on what the IRS says. This is the same organization which said that buying a clarinet for your child is a medical expense, after an orthodontist argued that playing it helped correct their kid's overbite. I don't see the problem with that. Another instance of something similar is the health benefits from playing the Didgeridoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo.
- toomanyrichies 4y ago
  > I don't know, is it important to make that distinction? Again, it is if you're interviewing a money manager. And that's basically what you're doing when you're judging a stock tip, whether from /r/WallStreetBets or anywhere else. That's not to say that professional investors don't post on Reddit. But so do a lot of idiots who talk a good game. My bet is that there's more of the latter than the former. If you wouldn't give equal credence to the software opinions of your two hypothetical examples, then you shouldn't do so with the investing opinions of my two examples. I'd sooner trust the advice of people with more knowledge vs. those with less. I'm not sure why that idea is such a tough sell for you. Obviously, feel free to do what you want with your money. I know which of the two people I'm trusting with mine. The market will tell us who was right in the long run.
  - maximinus_thrax 4y ago
    Not disagreeing with what you're saying. But if interviewing money managers, I care very little about: - how they're calling themselves (investors vs traders vs speculators vs etc..) - how other people are calling them (investors vs traders vs speculators vs etc..) - whether or not some group of people considers them true 'investors'. I'm talking (and have been talking) about the terminology here. > I'd sooner trust the advice of people with more knowledge vs. those with less. Again, please re-read my comments. Your text has nothing to do with what I said. When I said it's not important to make the distinction I was referring solely to the terminology.
    - toomanyrichies 4y ago
      > When I said it's not important to make the distinction I was referring solely to the terminology. I mean, it's important in the sense that it's generally useful to be able to differentiate two things that are, in fact, different from each other? When I order orange juice with my brunch, I don't want the waiter to come back with apple juice. When I ask my general practitioner to recommend a good oncologist, I don't want them to refer me to an ophthalmologist. Why would this be any different? Things mean things. To the extent that we blur the lines of our shared vocabulary, we make it harder to communicate with each other. Maybe you've never needed to distinguish between these two very different concepts, but lots of other people have.

maximinus_thrax 4y ago

> I still contend that it's important to distinguish between someone who takes calculated risks based on thorough research and industry knowledge vs. someone who does the Wall Street equivalent of "playing a hot tip at the race track" I don't know, is it important to make that distinction? What's so special about this? Is this some sort of protected guild? How do you distinguish between someone who went to college, majored in CS, writes protocol-level code professionally and holds 10 patents vs someone who went to a bootcamp, copy-pastes code from the internet while working in a web shop writing PHP extensions for wordpress? > I wouldn't base your opinion of who is or isn't an investor on what the IRS says. This is the same organization which said that buying a clarinet for your child is a medical expense, after an orthodontist argued that playing it helped correct their kid's overbite. I don't see the problem with that. Another instance of something similar is the health benefits from playing the Didgeridoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didgeridoo.

toomanyrichies 4y ago
> I don't know, is it important to make that distinction? Again, it is if you're interviewing a money manager. And that's basically what you're doing when you're judging a stock tip, whether from /r/WallStreetBets or anywhere else. That's not to say that professional investors don't post on Reddit. But so do a lot of idiots who talk a good game. My bet is that there's more of the latter than the former. If you wouldn't give equal credence to the software opinions of your two hypothetical examples, then you shouldn't do so with the investing opinions of my two examples. I'd sooner trust the advice of people with more knowledge vs. those with less. I'm not sure why that idea is such a tough sell for you. Obviously, feel free to do what you want with your money. I know which of the two people I'm trusting with mine. The market will tell us who was right in the long run.
- maximinus_thrax 4y ago
  Not disagreeing with what you're saying. But if interviewing money managers, I care very little about: - how they're calling themselves (investors vs traders vs speculators vs etc..) - how other people are calling them (investors vs traders vs speculators vs etc..) - whether or not some group of people considers them true 'investors'. I'm talking (and have been talking) about the terminology here. > I'd sooner trust the advice of people with more knowledge vs. those with less. Again, please re-read my comments. Your text has nothing to do with what I said. When I said it's not important to make the distinction I was referring solely to the terminology.
  - toomanyrichies 4y ago
    > When I said it's not important to make the distinction I was referring solely to the terminology. I mean, it's important in the sense that it's generally useful to be able to differentiate two things that are, in fact, different from each other? When I order orange juice with my brunch, I don't want the waiter to come back with apple juice. When I ask my general practitioner to recommend a good oncologist, I don't want them to refer me to an ophthalmologist. Why would this be any different? Things mean things. To the extent that we blur the lines of our shared vocabulary, we make it harder to communicate with each other. Maybe you've never needed to distinguish between these two very different concepts, but lots of other people have.