Investing: the ROI math means you make money
> So what you're saying is that we all just need to become better gamblers?
It means take advantage of the free education you received. Make an assessment of what you enjoy and what you are good at. Select an opportunity in the intersection of those two endeavors.
People start businesses every day in America.
> Besides, this can't work for everyone
Wealth is not zero sum. If you create wealth, that does not mean someone else must be worse off.
That profit comes from owning a piece of a productive company, productive companies often spring from early-stage losses that require investment money from somewhere, seed stage money comes from the high likelihood that later stage money will come in if the venture appears successful.
There are many problems with a gambling based economy, not least among them that over a long enough time line, all the money ends in very few hands.
You're assuming the economy is zero sum, which it obviously is not.
That assumption does not follow from my statement.
What I do assume is that the easiest way to make money is to have money, which means that the rich and get richer and the poor get poorer. We've already seen that the rise of billionaires correlatives with an increase in wealth inequality and poverty.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...
Or, I might be completely wrong and just been on an incredible white-hot-streak gambling for the last 30 years.
All of that money that you've "earned" with investment, where do you think it came from? What do you think you've done to deserve it? If investment is fundamentally risky, then it's an unsound basis for a stable society (i.e. it's gambling); if it's not risky, then you can't even argue that you deserve that money by having risked your own capital.
It was created by the company you invested in.
> What do you think you've done to deserve it?
I took the risk of providing capital for the company to use to create wealth.
Risk is an elemental characteristic of free markets.
That's right: the value was created by other people, but yet you are benefiting. That makes you a parasite.
> I took the risk of providing capital for the company to use to create wealth.
So what? I can take a risk by jumping into a shallow pool. That's not the same as labor and does not entitle me, ethically, to profit. The profit should go to the people who do the work.
Others might be more conservative and I hope they find and choose investments which match their style and risk-tolerance.
I don't care how you act. That capitalism benefits the rich is not the subject of debate. This isn't /r/wallstreetbets
What is at stake us that all value is created by labor; and that the capitalist class (of which you are a member) is allowed to profit despite not producing anything at all. That makes you a parasite. Isn't that what the rich say about the poor?
That's the communist "Labor Theory of Value" which is nonsense.
For example, spend the day digging a hole in your backyard. Did you create any value? Nope.
Can you explain how it's nonsense? Can you think of a valuable product or service that you consume that is not produced by labor?
> For example, spend the day digging a hole in your backyard. Did you create any value? Nope.
I didn't say that all labor produces value; I said that all value is produced by labor. As a Smart Guy who Created His Own Software Company with No Capital At All, I'm sure you know enough about elementary logic to recognize the difference.