Oops there goes another billion dollars - world.com declares

[peaccenicked]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2000Jun21.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33759-2000Jun21.html)
The system gambles with peoples livelihoods. That is immoral in itself.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Come on, peace.

What you are claiming is on par with blaming the cheyrnoble disaster on communism.

It is not the system, it is a few isolated incidents of misconduct that are being addressed.

This is a good thing for corporate america, it is a chance to clean house and make some adjustments that will be in everyones interests.

[peaccenicked]

The stock exchange is a casino.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/...sue7/cw7a1.html (http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue7/cw7a1.html)
BTW One can blame Chernobyl on the profoundly undemocratic system that Stalin created.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 11:26 pm on July 22, 2002
The stock exchange is a casino.
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/...sue7/cw7a1.html (http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue7/cw7a1.html)
BTW One can blame Chernobyl on the profoundly undemocratic system that Stalin created.

Do you have investments?

The stock market is nothing like a casino, there are no mathematically fixed odds in the houses favor, there is no measurable odds in favor of buyer or seller at all, risk is totally marginalized by good research and experience. If you are a true investor, you are in it for the long run, and you do your homework. You don't try to get rich quick off of hot tips.

[peaccenicked]

There is no fixed odds but investors relations with stockbrockers is not static and are risky if prices keep on going down and this digs into investors collateral.
The process is of gain and loss. There were widespread
losses during the 1929 collapse. It is merely a different form of gambling.

[RAM]

Anyway have to stay in for the long term 5 years+ and staying in is the best thing you can do and try to build confidence anyway shraes have to go up don't they? (worries!)

[marxistdisciple]

The worst thing is that people's livelihoods depend on the stockmarket (i.e. pensions) What exactly is the point in it? It helps some companies grow without increasing their customer base, and some companies fall regardless of the success of them. It brings the economy down onto people's "educated" guesswork, and financial greed. People invest because they want to make money out of money. They in effect make money by doing very little work, if any at all. The most successful brokers can make millions on a good day. They have helped no one except themselves by this gain. It is entirely figmental, estimated and guessed. None of it is directly linked to actual company performance.

[Stormin Norman]

This is obviously a ploy to protect themselves from the impending lawsuits they are facing, and remains an example of dispicable business practices. The judge should deny their motion, and force them to pay all of the bonds they have issued. However, I don't think that the ignoramus who had all of their holdings in Worldcom or Enron has a case against either of these corporations. Investing 101 - do not keep all of your eggs in one basket. If they didn't know that much, they deserved to lose all of their money.

[Stormin Norman]

I don't think the smart investor is in it for the long haul. No one in their right mind should ride this one out, unless they know what they are doing and can milk the market for the very little profit that exists in some of the stronger stocks.

I sold in 2000. Things appeared to be going too well for too long. It seemed to be a good time to put my money in safer investments like gold, bonds, and treasury money market accounts. I will wait for the moment when it appears the market can't get any worse and will buy good stocks for pennies on the dollar. This will be the buying chance of a lifetime. When the bull gets going, and everyone soon forgets the agony they had suffered, they will begin making the same mistakes and overvalue the market, once again. This is when it will be time to take my winnings and run. Off shore accounts and tropical living, I can't wait.

[marxistdisciple]

Exactly, were you trying to prove my point or something?

People make money out of money, there is nothing logical about that. It's not about work really is it?

[Capitalist Imperial]

Quote: from marxistdisciple on 12:23 pm on July 23, 2002
The worst thing is that people's livelihoods depend on the stockmarket (i.e. pensions) What exactly is the point in it? It helps some companies grow without increasing their customer base, and some companies fall regardless of the success of them. It brings the economy down onto people's "educated" guesswork, and financial greed. People invest because they want to make money out of money. They in effect make money by doing very little work, if any at all. The most successful brokers can make millions on a good day. They have helped no one except themselves by this gain. It is entirely figmental, estimated and guessed. None of it is directly linked to actual company performance.


Incorrect,maxistdisciple

Usually, company performance and value per share are heavily correlated.

Anyone who relies on the stock market for substainance needs to understand the risk involved in an equities market.

Just because someone doesn't perform physical labor in a company, doesn't mean they are making $$ from nothing, a cash investment is a significant risk, and should receive comensurate reward. That is a basic principle of free market investing. They help others, by giving businesses capital with which to increase performance, benefitting both the other shareholders and the customers that said business serves.

I am not excusing worldcom, enron, etc. Those companies actions are deplorable, but they do not represent the vast majority of viable, ethical businesses and commodities in the US free market that contribute to the US tax base, and are a great financial leverage instrument if used properly.

[marxistdisciple]

I don't know Ci, a lot of the really rich comapnies don't pay taxes (http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/tncs/2000/cisco1.htm)

I disagree with your stement about labour. It's not necessarily physical labour, but someone ought not make money off the backs of others, do you agree? I perform a significant risk by crossing a busy road, or by walking through my neighbourhood at night, I don't expect to recieve financial reward for that. Value should only be attributed to labour. You don't expect to win all the time when you gamble do you? The risk far outweighs the reward. The difference is, most fairly inteligent people can make money out of the stockmarket. I don't even advocate it, but I knew when the dotcoms first floated their shares would shoot up (i was right, yahoo and geocities went up tenfold.) however, I don't think that by predicting something like that you are performing a valuable service to anyone except yourself. You are making money out of other people's work. That I see as immoral. They must perform labour, and you second guess a system of a casino (with better odds) to make money. The reason they don't do the same is because they don't believe in that kind of "labour." Either that, or they don't have enough money to invest.
An yes, they are making dollars from nothing. what has their exchance of money for shares added to the company except a figmental stock price? this doesn't affect the compnaies product line, or their customer base, it just effects their stock price. the two are not linked, unless investors see a way to make profit.


"Usually, company performance and value per share are heavily correlated."

Why would companies actually tell the truth about their performance, what is pushing them to? (except the pesky law)

SN said;

"When the bull gets going, and everyone soon forgets the agony they had suffered, they will begin making the same mistakes and overvalue the market, once again. This is when it will be time to take my winnings and run. Off shore accounts and tropical living, I can't wait. "

The perfect example of how investors see the stock market as a chance to make something for nothing.

"They help others, by giving businesses capital with which to increase performance, benefitting both the other shareholders and the customers that said business serves. "

Not really, profits don't benefit consumers. They are the people who should be benefited above all others! Shares are linked to profits, the profits go down, the shares go down. Therefore, businesses are more likely to put prices up, sack staff etc. just to keep the stock price up. How does that benefit people? I once used a woldcom callign car to make internal calls to the US, they charged a ridiculous sum of almost a dollar a minute, (to put that in context, I pay 1.5c a minute now) so I didn't pay my bill. I'm not surprised they went belly up :)

[Guest]

For a group of people that wank on so much about how the long list of communist atrocities in the past are the fault of "misguided individuals" rather than the system itself, you seem unnaturally eager to misdeeds of individuals in capitalist systems to capitalism itself. Makes me wonder.

[Guest]

Of course, that should read "...eager to attribute the misdeeds of..."

[marxistdisciple]

Not at all. I attribute the faults of the capitalist system to the capitalist system itself. Did you not notice that?

What I am saying is capitalism rewards people that are willing to make money off the backs of other people's labour. Naturally that makes the most ruthless people in this society, the most successful, almost without exception, (this of course depends on how you judge success.) I never want to be the kind of person that cares more about money than people. I never want to be an executive in firestone or ford, deciding the lawsuits will cost less than the recall. That's the kind of attrocity a capitalist system naturally brings! When you judge wealth as an inanimate thing, and not a resource, or labour, many people will always take money over people, that's what the system teaches you to do. If you are rich, you can get more rich by playing the stockmarket. If you are rich, you can buy power by bribing senators, or MPs, or whoever.

"For a group of people that wank on so much about how the long list of communist atrocities in the past are the fault of "misguided individuals" rather than the system itself..."

I never used the term "misguided individuals." I'd be happier to use "evil bastard" to describe Stalin actually. I don't defend him at all, you obviously haven't been around here very long.

What I do say, is that if you have read any Marx at all, you would know that the USSR lacked many of the most important traits of communism. To call it communism was a crime to semantics if nothing else. Firstly, there was no democracy (a core underpinning of Marxism, if you had read the manifesto, or any of Lenin's work.)
Secondly, there was no "dictatorship" of the proletariat. If they didn't agree, they were executed. This would not happen under communism, as it is designed to be true democracy - the people decide on how to put the country together, and on important issues.

Of course, if there ever was communist state that had a chance, it would be cuba. Of course, the US doesn't want them to be successful, what other reason is there for the trade embargo?
They do have problems in Cuba, and it is not a system I fully support (Especially since it is non-democratic) but it does have the potential to evolve into a true socialist state, and I would like to see that happen. The guy at the head of the Brazilian opinion polls also aparently has Marxist leanings, and I would like to see how that turns out (if he doesn't get assasinated by the CIA)

Please read up before you start making wild critcisms about things you don't understand , guest.

Makes you wonder what? Maybe I am an evil red ready to take over the world, forcing it into "non-democratic" upheval, like history was evident about. Or maybe your pre-conceptions about communism were entirely founded on Western propoganda, and you've never actually read a book about it, and in fact know nothing about it at all?

[peaccenicked]

Capi's use stalinism to avoid the issue of their own immoral positions. How else can they defend the indefensible?




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Louise Neville Archive
What is Capitalism?
BY LOISE NEVILLE


Now that America's plants and businesses are throwing thousands of our workers out of jobs by cutting back or closing in order to move their enterprises to cheap labor countries, Americans are becoming aware that something's gone wrong. Those who have learned something about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) are becoming aware that international economics, a subject generally ignored by all, can indeed affect them at home through jobs, salaries, prices, consumer products, ecological laws, in fact at every level. To understand these new developments it is necessary to understand the capitalist system, how it words, what it is.

Advertised as a free enterprise profit system, capitalism is in fact a gambling game based upon gambling on business enterprises and on the economies of nations. It is a system based not upon goods but upon money, a new system never tired before in all the world's history. From its fragile beginnings in the 16th century, capitalism has now become worldwide, the biggest gambling game the world has ever know.

These simple facts have not been told to the layman on the principle that the less people know, the better. To most people interest in economics ends with their paychecks. They find no need to examine the economic system which gives them these paychecks, even when something goes wrong. How does this gambling system operate?

Gambling on Businesses: The Stock Market

Individuals, corporations and even nations finance a business by buying shares in it in the hope that if it thrives they will share in its profits. If many buy into that business, it thrives. If many pull back their money by selling their stock, it will falter; too many and the business fails. Banks and nations are also funded in this manner. This gives power to enterprises which they otherwise would not have. When many buy into a business the cost of the shares goes up, when they sell, the price goes down. The aim of the gambler is to buy these shares when the price is low and sell when the price is high, collecting the difference in cash.

The problem with this is not only the problem inherent in all gambling but the fact that many who buy may sell their stock simultaneously and that some who own a large number of share may deliberately sell to bring down the price of the stock in order to buy it again cheaply and again profit as the price rises. This must be done with care and knowledge; otherwise, the company will lose too much financing and become bankrupt.

The depression of the '30s is attributed to the fact that this technique, called "selling short," was not done with care. The result: the big market crash of 1929. Businesses failed, the banks which funded them failed, millions of workers, jobless, were thrown out on the streets. Millions of other lost the money they had deposited in banks. As these banks and businesses were either international or interdependent, the depression spread from the United Stages to the rest of the world and became a world disaster. To everyone that is except the original perpetrators who by selling when stock paid well became rich.

Bad gambling but it's part of the game.

Arbitrage: Gambling with the Economies of Nations Twenty-four hours a day international banks worldwide gamble with the currencies of nations in the same manner as gambling with business stocks, by buying a nation's money cheaply in quantity to force the price up, selling at the higher price to make a profit. Banks make billions of dollars daily gambling in this manner. Just as in business, nations can be financed or their finances depleted using this technique.

Banks excuse this practice by saying it balances currencies internationally. But there is a deeper purpose behind arbitrage: the control of nations through the control of their economies. During England's days of empire the Rothschild Bank, then the Bank of England used this method to aid the empire, to punish colonial countries which got out of line by destroying their economies. It worked very well. In no time recalcitrants came around and agreed to follow Britain's wishes.

There is every reason to note that this technique is still in force in the world today. England itself was recently the victim of it. About four months ago the financial pages announced that England was suddenly bankrupt, the British pound almost valueless. This continued for two days while England scrambled for loans with which to buy back at the original price its own currency. Loans were needed as it could not use the now worthless pound with this to do so. What preceded this event? England's split with the EEC, the European Economic Community. What followed the destruction of the pound? England mended its fences with the EEC.

Japan is another recent offender whose rich economy, the richest in the world, took a sudden crash. Not a gradual slide, a sudden crash. From affluence into poverty. What was Japan's offense? The creation with the use of its surplus funds of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations. ASEAN is or was an independent coalition which included the richest nations of South East Asia plus one MIddle Eastern oil state, Brunnnei. ASEAN has its own bank, agricultural and business directorates, even its own army and navy. As an entity, ASEAN would severely inhibit the freedom of outside nations to do business in that valuable area.

Predictably, Japan was suddenly broke. Arbitrage at work. As the stock market can be manipulated in the same manner by banks and corporate holders of large blocs of stock who can suddenly "shell short," both England and Japan could have been given a double whammy, one against business stocks, one against their national currencies. Very effective. It could happen to any nation, even to us, the U.S. Banks and large corporations are now independent of any nation, the banks "Eurobanks" international; corporations international.

You may be surprised to learn that the financial pages recently stated "The United States has no major banks." What about those huge banking consortiums, Citibank, largest in the world, Bank of America, Hanover Trust, and the other huge banks we have claimed as our own? All are now Eurobanks, unaligned with any nation. These with the international stock market run the gambling game we call the capitalist system.

As an economic system capitalism has proved a failure. Gambling creates an unstable world. Our business leaders know this. For this reason are instituting a new controlled system: centralized control of the world's economy with business in total control of world politics. Nations are considered wild cards in the deck, so their power will be removed either buy combining them into large entities, such as the EEC in Europe, NAFTA in North America, or by splitting them up into small manageable nations-the process now in effect in the former Soviet Union.

Citizens who are economic illiterates will of course know nothing of this, will merely roll with the punches as bit by bit the new capitalist economy is created.

It will be good for business. The only question is will it be good for citizens? With no real national powers to appeal to, only the corporate bodies that profit from the system, how much power over their own lives will ordinary people have if the fox is guarding the henhouse? That's a new gamble!

I have not dealt here with the production or distribution of wealth, but with finance, how that wealth is used to create our economy. This in turn creates our politics, our domestic and foreign policies. An economic system is based upon the way that economy is financed.

References:

Robert Alieber, The International Money Game

Neil Jacoby, Corporate Power and Social Responsibility: A

Blueprint for the Future

Anthony Sampson, The Money Lenders: One World is the Creation of International Bankers

Boardman & Tuerck, World Monetary Disorder: National

Policies vs. International Imperatives

Howard Wachtell, The Money Mandarins

Julian Weiss, The Asian Century

Ray Vicker, Those Swiss Money Men

HJseph Wechberg, The Merchant Bankers

Gertrude M. Coogan, The Money Creators

Neville Archive - - HOME - - Archives - - Electrons to the Editor

[American Kid]

Marxist Disciple, why are you so obsessed with the concept of "you should only get money through physical labor?"

(well, I know why: YOUR NAME; but humor me.....)

What about getting rich because you're brilliant? You cure a disease, or write a book, or design a building? Do you think the architect who designs a beautiful, well-concieved office building is a scum-bag because he makes more than the teamsters in hard-hats who build it?

I don't. I couldn't design an office building. Not too many people can. You have to be GIFTED to be a great architect. And that gift should be duly rewarded.

Not to take anything away from a construction worker. I'm no elitist. Seriously. But anyone can hammer nails.

Supply and demand. And trust me, the workers don't resent this. Why do you care? Everybody's content. If they're not, can move to Cuba.

At least here in America, or any other capitalistic country, they have the RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

-AK



(Edited by American Kid at 4:48 am on July 24, 2002)

[American Kid]

Peacenicked, define "indefensable".

And in YOUR OWN WORDS. I'm sick of you posting fucking NOVEL'S-worth of other people's.

-AK


(Edited by American Kid at 4:49 am on July 24, 2002)

[Shyne]

we still have sbc and verizon.

[peaccenicked]

Indefensible, is an economic system based on the legalised theft of wealth. Every single thing that is made is made by labour power. Capis come on this site basically lie about wages being a fair exchange. The also lie about it being a national system, when it is an international system putting the squeeze on the world's poorest countries.You are not worried about other peoples words, you are complacent about the truth.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Marxistdisciple: "I never want to be an executive in firestone or ford, deciding the lawsuits will cost less than the recall."

I work for Ford Motor Company,and I can tell you, that although it was a Firestone problem, and not a Ford problem (which the national transportation and highway safety administration corroborated later, of course it was post sept-11th, and it vindicated a big-bad corporation, so no one really heard about it), Ford still stepped up and took on the expense of replacing every last firestone tire in question with a comparable model.

And this was before it was even decided who was responsible (it ended up being firestone). Ford has not recovered the cost of the replacement program from Bridgestone/Firestone, and has severed the 70-year plus supply contract with the tiremaker.

One of many examples of ethical corporate responsibility and goodwill.


Of course, the media reported the ford/firestone debauchle as a top story every day for a year, then once ford is vindicated, the story is on page C-13 of the mudville times.

How nice.

[peaccenicked]

from Corporate Watch
Henry Ford was no Oskar Schindler
Ford Motor Co. and the Nazi War Efforts
Corporate Watch

The Ford Motor Company's commercial-free sponsorship of NBC's airing of Schindler's List, the epic movie about the Holocaust, was a class act. Nevertheless, it would be remiss of us here at Corporate Watch, not to point out Ford's contribution to Nazi war efforts.

The following is excerpted from a report printed by the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary in 1974:

The activities of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler prior to and during World War II...are instructive. At that time, these three firms dominated motor vehicle production in both the United States and Germany. Due to its mass production capabilities, automobile manufacturing is one of the most crucial industries with respect to national defense. As a result, these firms retained the economic and political power to affect the shape of governmental relations both within and between these nations in a manner which maximized corporate global profits. In short, they were private governments unaccountable to the citizens of any country yet possessing tremendous influence over the course of war and peace in the world. The substantial contribution of these firms to the American war effort in terms of tanks, aircraft components, and other military equipment is widely acknowledged. Less well known are the simultaneous contributions of their foreign subsidiaries to the Axis Powers. In sum, they maximized profits by supplying both sides with the materiel needed to conduct the war.

During the 1920's and 1930's, the Big Three automakers undertook an extensive program of multinational expansion...By the mid-1930's, these three American companies owned automotive subsidiaries throughout Europe and the Far East; many of their largest facilities were located in the politically sensitive nations of Germany, Poland, Rumania, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, and Japan...Due to their concentrated economic power over motor vehicle production in both Allied and Axis territories, the Big Three inevitably became major factors in the preparations and progress of the war. In Germany, for example, General Motors and Ford became an integral part of the Nazi war efforts. GM's plants in Germany built thousands of bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the Luftwaffe at the same time that its American plants produced aircraft engines for the U.S. Army Air Corps....

Ford was also active in Nazi Germany's prewar preparations. In 1938, for instance, it opened a truck assembly plant in Berlin whose "real purpose," according to U.S. Army Intelligence, was producing "troop transport-type" vehicles for the Wehrmacht. That year Ford's chief executive received the Nazi German Eagle (first class)....

The outbreak of war in September 1939 resulted inevitably in the full conversion by GM and Ford of their Axis plants to the production of military aircraft and trucks....On the ground, GM and Ford subsidiaries built nearly 90 percent of the armored "mule" 3- ton half-trucks and more than 70 percent of the Reich's medium and heavy-duty trucks. These vehicles, according to American intelligence reports, served as "the backbone of the German Army transportation system."....

After the cessation of hostilities, GM and Ford demanded reparations from the U.S. Government for wartime damages sustained by their Axis facilities as a result of Allied bombing...Ford received a little less than $1 million, primarily as a result of damages sustained by its military truck complex at Cologne...

Due to their multinational dominance of motor vehicle production, GM and Ford became principal suppliers for the forces of fascism as well as for the forces of democracy. It may, of course, be argued that participating in both sides of an international conflict, like the common corporate practice of investing in both political parties before an election, is an appropriate corporate activity. Had the Nazis won, General Motors and Ford would have appeared impeccably Nazi; as Hitler lost, these companies were able to reemerge impeccably American. In either case, the viability of these corporations and the interests of their respective stockholders would have been preserved.

Extracted from Bradford C. Snell, American Ground Transport: A Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile, Truck, Bus and Rail Industries. Report presented to the Committee of the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, United States Senate, February 26, 1974, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1974, pp. 16-24.

[marxistdisciple]

Well someone was responsible, and knew about it in a terrible evil money-over-life sort of way. I was thinking of the gas tank thing when I mentioned ford, or was that another company? It matters not, the point was they knew the gas tanks could explode on rear impact, and they thought the recall would cost too much. I think a family sued when one person died and other had burns and scars all over their body for the rest of their life. I think they won a record ridiculous sum, of a billion dollars or something. It was a lot anyway. I think companies would hopefully stop working out the costs of legal cases in the future, when everyone knows what they should doing.

The point being, when people get obessed with money, they tend to make those sort of choices.

[Capitalist Imperial]

Good article, but was that a sort of rebuttal or did I just jog you memory to post that article?

[peaccenicked]

One of many examples of ethical corporate responsibility and goodwill.

Meanwhlie the IMF dictates prices in the developed world. Good will is mostly about big profits. What is the good will in the fact that 100 billionaires own more than the 80% of the rest of the world.
What is responsible about that?

[marxistdisciple]

Ak, read before you start preaching. I didn't say PHYSICAL labour, I said labour in general! I was arguing about people making money from the stock market, not bloody architects who are highly skilled at their jobs.

They create something, they invest time and skill in something, in order to design a building. In contrast, a stockbroker figures out where the market will go, buys some shares, and sells them later at a profit. they have created nothing, they have benefitted no one EXCEPT for themselves. Understand that?

What I don't condone is people making money, just from having large amounts of money. Like when celebrities get stuff free in shops because they are famous. I bet they don't give free designer clothes to homeless people that walk in do they? Of course not. The system nurtures wealthy people to an unfairly advantageous pinnacle.

To conclude, it's not people being wealthy I loathe, it's the fact that people are celebrated because of their wealth and fame, and not because of what they have actually achieved! People who are wealthy gain more power and influence than people who are not, that upsets the balance of democracy. Do you not concede that? Do you really believe that because someone is more wealthy, they should have more control over the choice of government, or (in the case of the 2000) election the actual result of the vote?

If you do, then you are the elitist you claim you are not. Just because people have more money, doesn't make them more important. Unfortunately we live in societies obessed with celebrity - people who are famous, therefore somehow more worthy than the rest of us.
People who are poor buy lottery tickets every week in the hope of one day being rich enough to afford the things they want out of life.
The problem with money is not having it.

Once you don't have it, somehow people treat you differently.

Once you don't have it, you are cast outside society because you are no use to corporations (they cannot profit from you.) People would leave you on the street. Why? because they don't advantage themselves by helping you. You know who the people who help those disadvantaged are, the people who look after the mentally ill, the homeless, the dying? The people who believe in humanity, beyond profit? They are socialists, like the people on this board! That's what socialism is abut in my eyes. In the end, they care about people more than selfish gains. Do you not understand that either?

[American Kid]

Bloody misinterperted by me.

Noted.

Touche.

-The (fuck I hate when I'm sort of wrong) Kid

[Stormin Norman]

Marxist Disciple,

How can you say that investors don't create anything? That is a bogus assumption. They create the kind of capital necessary for the risks incurred by business. You say that it is a form of gambling. I beg to differ. Investing is so much more intelligent that watching a ball spin around the roullete wheel or roling the dice. First of all, one must have the ability to read graphs and notice trends. Secondly, the smat investor will only invest in corporations that are viable for tomorrow's future. Nanotechnology, superconductors, biotech, semiconductors, quatum computing, hydrogen power, water filtration, agricultural engineering are only a few fields that with promote the success of tommorrow's generations. Also companies like Proctor and Gamble and Johnson & Johnson produce things like toilet paper and toothpaste, things the society needs for better living. Finally, wise investors will secure their own retirement independent of a government entitlement, thereby alleviating the burden of the tax payer. In addition, they will promote the education of the next generation by making the money necessary for their child's college education. To conclude, stock brokers generate more than unearned profits. They provide jobs, create wealth and prosperity, education, and better living for people after they retire. Without investors much of the R&D that has advanced the health care sector would not have been possible. You chose to ignore the benefits of the system you live under, and would be wise not to take such prosperity for granted, no matter how little you're convince that you benefit.

[marxistdisciple]

LOL come on, "How can you say that investors don't create anything? That is a bogus assumption. They create the kind of capital necessary for the risks incurred by business. "

They dont create things though do they? they create money. Money is an inamiate object, money can just as easy be used to buy a new car as it is used to create actual, physical, useful things. You make out that that investors are somehow in it to create something helpful for all of us. they are there to make profit, whatever the rest of society derives from that is puerly coincidental. None of it is connected with the process of investemnt. the companies that you mention are well performing, safe bet companies, but they hardly constitute a large investment, they are low risk bond type companies that don't rise or fall too much really.
"Also companies like Proctor and Gamble and Johnson & Johnson produce things like toilet paper and toothpaste, things the society needs for better living."
Incidently, what has what the compnay produces got to do with the investment? Yuo aren't really suggesting that investors make ethical judgements are you? they just invest in the company that is most likely to make them profit, whether it be toothpaste, or arms.

"Finally, wise investors will secure their own retirement independent of a government entitlement, thereby alleviating the burden of the tax payer"

So do all rich people, is that an argument somehow?

"In addition, they will promote the education of the next generation by making the money necessary for their child's college education."

Again, that isn't related to the stockmarket, purely to wealth.

"They provide jobs, create wealth and prosperity, education, and better living for people after they retire. "

No, they don't, their job is to create money. All the creating of jobs and education is performed by other parties. Education is not related to the stockmarket at all, where did you get that idea?
All the arguments you make are about having money, none of them are arguments for the stockmarket.

"Without investors much of the R&D that has advanced the health care sector would not have been possible. You chose to ignore the benefits of the system you live under, and would be wise not to take such prosperity for granted, no matter how little you're convince that you benefit."

Where do you get the idea that R&D is based on stockmarket investment? Plenty of publically funded institutes make amazing scientific discoveries, what has this to do with investment? Investment doesn't directly create capital for the company, it just makes shareholders richer.

I don't take it for granted, I am grateful of all the things I have that countries we are exploting don't have. Trust me, I think about it every day. I feel guilty that some of the clothes I wear are made in sweatshops (where there workers have the choice to work for a pittance or die) I feel guilty that although we could help most of the world out of poverty as western nations and have by far and away enough resources, we choose not to because it is not in our interest. Then I feel rightous that I care, when most people are ignorant of these facts, and don't really care.

It makes me angry that I care more about human life than most other things, and most people forget about it by watching TV because they have no passion or conviction to help others. Yes, that angers me. What angers me more is people telling me I should be grateful....I am grateful for all the things I have.....but passionately angry that for these, I lost my freedom, and other people have lost theirs too.

Of course, you are welcome to enjoy the profits of western life, just remember that every time you eat, someone is starving, and every time you drink someone is drinking poisoned water. Every time you climb into bed someone is sleeping outside in the cold, and everytime you invest money, to make more money, someone else is struggling to survive. To be honest, I doubt you care, but I thought I'd mention it anyway,