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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The Piggy Bank is empty, Wall Street reacts
  • Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:14:35 -0700

Two of our resident financial mavens:

So Wall Street reacting to an empty Piggy Bank is unconvincing, Wall
Street's piggy bank never had any actual coins to shake out on demand, it
has been empty all along.

---you got that right, James---it's all an illusion---

Good grief guys. Can't tell if you are serious or just having fun. There are impressionable people here.

Public companies raise capital by selling their stock. Some of that capital is used to buy machinery, some for R&D, some is used to perk the top dogs. Some companies are managed well and return a profit to their stockholders. Some lose. That is life at all levels. There are stock market gamblers, including day traders, who operate much along the lines of Las Vegas gamblers, except the stock market house takes a smaller cut.

I have always preferred real estate over stocks and am only mildly knowledgeable of how the stock market and monetary system work. Chris's 401k is invested in mutual funds managed by a large company, and she forces me to manage that account, so I have to know the stock market a bit. I don't like the short term fluctuations but have confidence in it long term. There are responsible and irresponsible managers in all fields. Trillions of American and foreign dollars are invested in American companies, and people who consider themselves very important and very rich make damn sure their investments are safe and continue to increase in value. Lots of money is made and lots more is lost, the latter usually through impatience and greed. Long-term stock market investment returns an average above inflation. I still like real estate better, not in the least because I am much more knowledgeable about it, but mostly because the product is becoming more scarce and the demand is rising. Until the computer revolution nearly all great wealth was founded and held in real estate. If Wall Street burns to the ground, the ground will still be there.






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