True or False - The Stock Market is a Scam

[el_bryanto]

17 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Totally True
	7 (41%)
	Somewhat True
	2 (12%)
	Neither True nor False
	3 (18%)
	Somewhat False
	2 (12%)
	Totally False
	2 (12%)
	I don't know enough to make an informed selection
	1 (6%)
	I do know enough to recognize this bullshit poll
	0 (0%)
	I like to vote!
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[graham4anything]

1. It is easy

if the market goes up, Obama dislikers think its fixed
if the market goes down, Obama dislikers wonder why he is so bad that the market drops

hey waiter- pour me another cup of whine please


Reminds me of a great LBJ quote-
LBJ said, If tomorrow I walked on water, the naysayers would say "LBJ can't swim".

[magellan]

2. Except for those of us who don't fit into your tidy little boxes

...and are able to consider a subject without bringing party politics into it.

[el_bryanto]

3. I agree

I was thinking more about potential investors, not how it affected President Obama

[graham4anything]

16. there are 2 sides of the street.

if one stands in the street, and can't pick either the east side or the west side

they get run over

there aren't 3 sides
just 2

nice and trim and neat and pretty

99% of america wants the market to go up as they have something invested in it

and optimism breeds better

Hey bartender, another cup of whine for the dislikers.

I never heard of a lottery winner refusing the $1million dollar prize
Next one I hear about will be the first.

[magellan]

20. Save your breath

I'm not swayed by pom poms and high kicks.

[graham4anything]

22. Neither will the Nader and the rand Paul/David Duke lovers ever admit what they did in 2000

and the single worst thing in 2016 would be for Hillary not to get way over 50%
and then, like happened to Bill in 1992, they say he was not legit because he got less than 50%

One of the main reasons(besides it was unconstittuional) that after the recount was stopped nothing else could be done, was because Al if seated would not have been legit, just like most thought Bush wasn't.

And in fact, except for 9-11, Bush would have continued to be given minor things to do, like read about geese in school buildings (or was it ducks) and would have had a single term nothing of a presidency.

SO it behooves those to fully vote in 2014 and 2016 for the democratic party.

Any vote NOT for the democratic party is against the democratic party.

imho

but it's America, and anyone can do whatever they like

but in America, anyone has the right to say what a fool hardy thing it is

I wish more people would not be silent on this and speak up.

Because the vast # of people would agree with me, most though don't want to get involved so they ignore it.

[magellan]

24. This was a thread asking a simple question about the stock market

And as far as I'm concerned, it still is. Assuming political bias - maybe you should look in the mirror.

[hfojvt]

30. you are either with us

or against us, dammit.

[magellan]

34. Hey you cheerleaders!

Get offa my lawn!

[olddots]

32. " hey Jonny what are you rebelling about ?"

" Whad yougut ? " Rebel without a cause

[bluedigger]

37. "I never heard of a lottery winner refusing the $1million dollar prize"

So you agree that both are games of chance?

[graham4anything]

40. No.

And the title says SCAM.

a lottery is not a scam, and a good number of states use the money for education anyhow.
So the title of the thread states SCAM.

it's not a scam.

and it is open to most everyone, and most union people have benefits that are directly tied to the market.

Bernie Madoff's only problem was that he couldn't pay out. Had he kept paying out, no one would have complained. He was a fraud. But he is NOT the typical.So he is a bad example.

What gets people broke is not being realistic and not investing smartly, or in things that will go obsolete

For example-
in Queens (Rego Park) NYC-decades ago, Macy's and others wanted to build their Queens BLVD. outlet and bought up the entire blocks it was going to be on.

One lady, very old, said NO she won't move.
So they kept offering.

They built around her and made an odd shaped round building, with the weirdest and narrowest parking lot in the world.

She lost millions.
AFter she died it was sold, but Macy's no longer needed the land.

I myself don't play the market so I didn't lose when it went down, nor did I gain now.

And houses that used to be $100,000 and went up to $500,000 and now are back to $200000
never were worth $500million.
So that was unrealistic to think it would always go up.

[bluedigger]

42. Then don't conflate them. n/t

[graham4anything]

43. One could just as easily say-no one would refuse to have one share stock go up to 100 shares

no one gives up a gain

no one would tell a real estate agent, the house cost 100,000 I only want 103,000 and not 250,000 (or any number)

no one tells a waiter to charge $20 instead of $5

[1-Old-Man]

12. You're certainly right about that.

There are far too many people here who believe that Obama can do no wrong, and while this has nothing at all to do with the stock market (something about which not one in one-hundred DUers have a clue), your observation is none the less accurate.

[graham4anything]

18. A vote for Nader is a vote for Jeb Bush in 2016

Most union workers are invested in the market, whether they know it or not

Speaking of Wall Street and the super rich, you are aware that Alan Grayson has over
40million dollars at least, ran a top100 fortune corporation and could pay for 100,000,000 to 500,000,000 meals should he choose.
last I heard he give almost nothing to charity.
Not that I hold that against him

Just shooting the breeze and that trivial point entered my mind.

[former9thward]

29. Why are you obsessed by Nader?

The last time he ran was in 2008 and it was a half hearted campaign at best. In 2016 he will be in his mid 80s and will not be running for anything. If whoever you back ends up losing you will have to find some other whipping boy to blame.

[graham4anything]

36. Because he is a prototype him that Jeb is going to exploit with Rand/Duke

Even Paul Wellstone was adament that voting for anyone but the democratic nominee in any presidential was foolish.

[Agnosticsherbet]

4. The Stock Market is no more a scam than a Las Vegas Cassino...

It is simply a legal form of gambling. Companies, retirement funds, and individuals make money off it, and sometimes lose money on it. They are not being scammed unless someone sells them a guaranteed 5% return per year.

Place your bets, gentlemen.

[slackmaster]

5. One of the first things I learned about investing in stocks is that if you regard it as gambling...

...you're not doing it right.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. If you know how to play, a good game of Poker isn't gambling...

it is an exercise in psychology.

Naw, poker is still gambling.

You research stocks, or hire somebody to do it for you, and you reduce your risk with your investment. But you still risk that investment. If I buy a piece of property I can always live on it, so it is worth something even if property vales plummet. Stocks hold no such guarantee. I learned that with the Stock Market plunge, a decade of retirement investments wiped away. I gambled and lost.

And there are pleanty of Bernie Madoffs out there to make it at least partly a scam.

[KharmaTrain]

13. The Madoffs Were Offering Far More Than 5% a Year...

...many of their funds were offering 10-15% or higher. I sat through a proposal for one of those funds that, at the time, was clipping at 19% and the pitch was its track record and how many others have invested in it. I asked about how such a fund could crank at such a high level and I was told, it's all good...how could it not be with so many people involved. It sure sounded like a ponzi scheme at the time and I'm glad I walked from it, but I'm sure the pitch put a lot of dollar bills and stars in many gullible eyes. The Barnum rule of a fool and his money always apply when dealing with brokers and "financial planners".

Yep, putting money strictly in the market in total gamble but smart investors are diversified and these days a 5% return is not too much to expect...

[MineralMan]

6. It can be a scam or not, depending on many factors.

It is a capital equities market. Legitimate companies issue stock to fund whatever they need to be funded. Investors buy those stocks in hopes that the company will do well, the stock prices will rise, dividends will be paid, and they'll benefit from it.

That said, the stock market is played by stock traders who deal in large volumes of stock, working small incremental changes in stock value to earn a profit. That is mainly a short-term thing. Over long periods of time, the stock market pretty accurately reflects actual value of the individual equities.

A guy can gamble on the stock market, but an individual will probably not benefit by doing so. However, individuals who carefully assess what stocks they buy to hold for the long term can do pretty well over the long haul. I know that I wish that my professional ethics had allowed me to buy Microsoft stock in the 1980s. However, since I reviewed software products, I couldn't ethically invest in software company stocks.

[1-Old-Man]

15. Very nice description of how it works for people who pay attention, but one slight correction

Actually this is a very big correction, but its not one that many folks give a great deal of attention. The stock market, as we typically know it, doesn't actually act as vehicle by which legitimate companies raise money for their needs. The stock market as we see it is actually a secondary market. Think of it as a used car lot. When a company needs to raise money and choses to sell shares to do so it does not initially sell those shares 'at the market' but instead sells them through a broker. The broker then resells the shares to investors (be they big or small) and those investors use the market to resell them and so on .... But the point is that if a share is for sale on one of the large exchanges, the NYSE for instance, the money it brings does not go to the company but to the previous owner. To go back to the used car analogy, when Chrysler builds a car it sells it to the public via its dealership network and that is how they make their money, but when the car is resold it goes to the used car market where it is private individuals who do the buying and selling. The stock market exchanges are just like the used car market, but considerably more regulated.

Another thing. While it true that from time to time an Enron shows up on a major exchange, a company who's business is illigitimate in that it is a fraud, they are very rare. More common are the McDonald's and GMs, and Atlanta Screen Door Manufacturing, on the market. They are honest to god companies doing honest to god work every day and hopefully earning profits. If you are one of the millions of partial owners of one or more of those firms and they grow then so does the value of your investment in shares of their stock.

[MineralMan]

17. Thanks. I do understand the difference, of course.

Since the exchanges are the source for most people of equity shares, I tend to identify them as the place one markets shares in a company. But, you're right, corporate equity shares can also be bought and sold in other ways.

Thanks for the perfectly accurate correction.

[hfojvt]

35. it doesn't have to be long term though

Although, things are perhaps easy now. I said many years ago, that when you buy stock during a recession every stock is a winner.

I got back in to the market after it tanked in 2008, that seemed to be a good time to pick up some bargains. Plus the interest rates on savings accounts were going into the toilet, so I wanted a better return. I started with a mere $2000, and have had some setbacks, sometimes fairly substantial (I owned, for example, 50 shares of Freddie Mac when it went from $5 to $1 in about half a day. (That's what I get for trusting Senator Chris Dodd, but I got it all back anyway, mostly by buying 400 shares at 30 cents a share, and so on)) but in four years or so, I have turned $7,000 into $8,441, which is a decent return on investment, and it has been short term gains, mostly. In fact just today I made $193 on some stock I have held for about five weeks. Not a huge some of money, but a decent return on a mere $3,000.

[Arctic Dave]

7. I said "Scam".

I would say at one time it was less of one but now it is soooo fixed that it has become a fleecing mechanism for Wall Street.



Note:

When you investment firms and banks can sit on billions and billions of dollars without doing anything with I think the purpose of the stock market has lost it's meaning.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

8. I'm gonna go with "somewhat true"

It does serve a valuable purpose, that of allocating funds between borrowers and lenders, but it's been corrupted to the point that it's a casino for the uber-rich and hedge managers.

We need to Glass-Steagall the stock market to separate the two.

[Bucky]

10. It's a sponge for unconsumed capital. It's money chasing money instead of buying work

It has it's uses, but it doesn't reflect what it purports to reflect and it doesn't accomplish only what it brags about accomplishing. There are lots of real scams going on in stock markets, but the system does provide some genuine energy for the national economy. It's got about the same relationship to the economy that betting on football has to the NFL, but obviously involves a much bigger portion of the total economic value than what betting does with football.

[DetlefK]

11. The derivative-market is worth more money than exists in the whole world.

The stock-market consists of so many loosely correlated systems, that it's an almost perfect random.
There are scientific workgroups focused on AI, statistics and predictions.
Their programs are so good, that they can predict your pick in a binary dilemma, provided that the program had some time to study you.
It's just cold, hard math, but sometimes their accuracy is frightening. (It's really hard to trick them.)
But even they can't predict the stock-market.

The stock-market is random, but that doesn't make him fair, because the playing-field isn't leveled. Hight-Speed-trading, complicated financial products only absolute pros get... And of course insider-trading, which is no victim-less crime, because the damage is spread out over the millions of other traders.

And let's not forget the derivatives. The whole market covering something north of $600 TRILLION.
The gross world product of 2011 was $70 trillion.
1. The banks made up value and backed it up through some private financial means. Which means, the banks essentially created their own currency.
2. What to do with bursting bubble, when even the combined world economy hasn't enough money for a bail-out?

[denverbill]

14. Somewhat false.

Brokers will sometimes steer investors to buy something they wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, but aside from that, the stock market is not a scam.

There are plenty of solid companies, with good, reliable earnings which will give a person a much higher return than savings accounts or CDs. Stocks go up and stocks go down but in the long term, they mostly go up.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

19. Totally agree

People who lack the confidence or experience to evaluate investments for themselves and just blindly trust what some "authority" figure has told them; or who panic and sell when the market drops or who only buy after the market has gone up, up, up... those are the ones who get into trouble and think the market is a scam.

Our educational system and our media do a poor job helping people to think realistically about markets and other personal financial decisions.

[denverbill]

25. I was going to say completely false, but there are some sleezy actors in the stock market as well.

But saying the stock market is a scam is like saying the auto market is a scam because there are sleazy auto dealers out there.

Yes the stock market is a 'gamble' but so is a savings account to a degree. My rules of thumb are:
1) Don't invest money that you might need in an emergency. That may force you to sell at a loss.
2) Don't chase hot stocks.
3) Buy for the long term.
4) Don't panic if the market drops.

The market has had several big drops in my time, including 1987 when it lost 27% of it's value in one day. But people who owned mutual funds and didn't panic made their money back and more by just sitting tight. Same goes for the crash of 2008, and 2001, and 2002.

[aristocles]

28. I fired my broker 20 years ago. Since then...

Since then I've done my own investment research and have succeeded in getting good returns on my investment every year. As others here have noted, if one does good research and does not panic when the market goes down, the effects of down markets can be minimized. The information I used to rely on getting from a broker I can get myself from the Internet; and it takes only a few hours a week.

I'm looking forward to a comfortable retirement. I may start another business.

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. As it exists today, it is a scam. In its early days it was a useful organization that grew out

of a necessary service, but it i a victim of its own success. Too much money found its way into this market and those that own it turned it from its purpose to their own ends.

[Nye Bevan]

23. I always thought it was a route for companies to raise capital,

while giving investors the benefit of limited liability.

But then what the hell do I know. Perhaps it is an evil tool conjured up by the 0.01% to enable them to kill puppies and cause widows to starve.

[dawg]

26. It's not a scam.

Some unscrupulous people use the market to scam others. More often, people use it to scam themselves; buying when stocks are high and then panicking and selling them when they are low.

[SidDithers]

27. The stock market serves a purpose to capitalize companies...

playing the stock market, on the other hand, is a losers game.

Sid

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. "Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen." Woody Guthrie

[olddots]

33. So is the market like cocaine ?

Super hyped bullshit played by amoral wankers at the expense of billions ?

[moondust]

38. Insider trading is a scam.

And I believe that is more common than people think. But it would probably take a small army of dedicated gubmint workers to police it so that ain't gonna happen. I suspect there may be quite a bit of organized crime gaming the markets because it's easier and more profitable to cheat on Wall Street than in Las Vegas.

I wouldn't care what happens on Wall Street if only it had remained a private little gambling pastime for the idle rich. But they dragged too much of the U.S. economy into it: promoting corporatization and pushing corporations to rape, pillage, and plunder in the endless pursuit of profits and growth, sucking up people's pensions, trying to suck up Social Security and any other big pile of money they can find, leading to mergers and acquisitions such that some companies become too big to hold accountable and there is not enough competition left to benefit consumers or workers, etc.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

39. What if you had asked...?

What if you had asked: have you ever invested in the market and are you happy with the outcome?

I suspect that those who believe it is a scam, may have lost money.

And those that think it is not a scam, made some.

(I voted mostly false, i.e. not a scam, mostly. I do invest and believe it has been a big help to my finances.)

The percentage that judge it is a scam is sadly high though. Maybe we need a thread on how to approach investing in the market?

[el_bryanto]

47. Yep - I can't disagree with this assessment

But I don't think an investors forum would do much; I think the attitude is too strong.

Bryant

[HereSince1628]

41. Scam? Maybe not. But an unequal and unfair market? At least at times, certainly.

[madville]

44. I like stocks that consistently pay dividends

It's nice getting a share of the profits here and there, the stocks basically pay for themselves over time, you still own them, and hopefully they increase in value on top of that.

[pansypoo53219]

45. it's a casino now.

[L0oniX]

46. DOW index is bullshit! No adjustment for inflation.

Stock market does not represent the majority of the US people ...maybe 10% at best. 401k's a scam.