Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - [permaculture] Re: permaculture investing & stock markets

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: permaculture investing & stock markets
  • Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:02:08 EST

In a message dated 1/4/2004 7:32:42 PM Eastern Standard Time, kfinigan@spots.ca writes:

When "investing" in the stock market, 99% of the time, no investment is
ACTUALLY made in any company - you simply pay the current owner of the stock
and you (in theory) get the stock certificate. The PREVIOUS owner makes all
the money (i.e. you are actually investing in him/her). The exception (about
1% of stock trade values) is an Initial Public Offering - when the company
first issues a set of shares/stocks. In this rare case, you can
actually "invest" in the company, giving it seed capital for some work you
hopefully believe in / are excited about.

AT ALL TIMES, you are buying something that must be sold to somebody else
(occasionally the company) to obtain value yourself (a few companies issue
dividends these days, but these are usually small). HENCE, to get
your "investment" back, someone must be convinced to buy your investment at
a (hopefully) higher rate. Your profit comes after clearing all charges for
commissions, management fees and capital gains taxes.

Excellent point. Excellent.

I would add one other point. It's interesting that the market analysts don't track the amount of money coming into and leaving the market each day. Sure, they give you the volume, but that's not much of an indicator. The important number is how much money is cashing out, and going elsewhere, as opposed to how much in new savings is entering the market. This is a broad indicator of whether stocks in general are being over-valued (inflated into a bubble by more money than they're worth) or under-valued (in a slump like 2003, where there is a lot of money that has been taken out for other purposes, or has simply vanished into thin air).

We should keep the money we have within the community, by investing only in eco-firendly enterprises. Look for green funds, so your savings don't leave the community.

This is like a small town. There is only so much money in it until somebody visits on their way to the beach, stays in a motel and eats dinner. Then there is another $75 in town, to be traded back and forth between the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker until somebody uses it to buy something made outside of town. Buy stuff at WalMart and your money goes straight to Oklahoma, and into five of the ten deepest pockets in the USA (the lovable Waltons).

So please all, look for "family" investments.



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page