My (horrible) experience on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange

[Cyrano]

Many moons ago, one of my first jobs was as a page on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange. Pages would all sit together on a bench until called, and then go around the floor of screaming maniacs, collect little pieces of paper, deliver them all to a central point and go back to sit on the bench.

I really had no idea what all of these shouting people were doing, but every time I walked through the floor, I felt like I was in the middle of a madhouse. The hundreds of people shrieking all at once raised my blood pressure, quickened my pulse and set my teeth on edge. I saw two people have heart attacks on the floor over a period of a few weeks.

But here’s what really bothered me. I didn’t see where anything of value was being produced. Both my father and mother worked at places that actually made things. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see what was being made (aside from money) by these people who seemed to be creating nothing more than an ear-shattering din of indistinguishable shouts.

One day I went out to lunch, walked a few blocks to the Staten Island ferry and got on. Staring out over New York harbor, I decided I wasn’t going back to work (except to change my clothes and leave). Although I had no concept of the business being conducted at the NYSE, I had reached the conclusion that there was something about it that was terribly wrong.

I had grown up in a world where people either made goods, sold goods, repaired goods, hauled trash, made electricity flow, drove people where they wanted to go, and so many other tasks that were immediately identifiable. And right or wrong, I reached the conclusion that the place in which I was working had nothing to do with the real world, or the lives of anyone I knew. Little did I know that the horde of screaming maniacs had it within their power to destroy the real world.

Today, I understand the purpose of the stock market. And you can call me a socialist, a communist, or any other name you can think of, but I have never bought a stock and I feel there is something intrinsically evil about the entire concept.

I know that many of you won’t agree with me, but my case rests on the fact that today, Wall Street has driven Main Street into the sewer. No one should have that much power over the vast majority of us.

[GodlessBiker]

1. Who should own these companies then?

[amdezurik]

2. do try to stay on point

...

[KittyWampus]

5. the people that work in them? At least in part?

[GodlessBiker]

9. I like that idea.

[Mme. Defarge]

18. Corporate personhood

has got to go.

[Cyrano]

20. Hi, MMe. Defarge. Great idea, but CEOs will fight that to the death

It means that they could personally be held responsible for their actions. What a horrible thought -- ACCOUNTABILITY. It's, it's -- horrors -- anti-Republican.

You can bet that if the crazies are ever again allowed to regain power, you will be on their list of people to be burned at the stake.

[JackRiddler]

24. Not necessarily.

A corporation could still allow limited liability (i.e., you lose only what you invest, assuming no crimes are committed) and yet not be considered a legal person with all the rights of a person (actually more than a person, since it's immortal). That's how it was until the post-Civil War Supreme Court decisions establishing corporate personhood.

EDIT:

But yes, the corpotocracy will fight it to the death - unless its death is coming anyway due to its own failures.

[Uncle Joe]

58. I believe that's what Lincoln was afraid of,

when he spoke of the dangers posed by the power of moneyed interests.

[bigmonkey]

73. Personhood was never awarded by the Supreme Court.

Thom Hartmann has discovered that there was no such decision, it was an assertion, without legal force, by the clerk. That non-decision was the "precedent" that's been used ever since.

Unbelievable, but true.

[ColbertWatcher]

45. "CEOs will fight that to the death" That's good enough for me. n/t

[Cyrano]

47. Unfortunately, the deaths that CEOs have in mind are ours, not their own.

[ColbertWatcher]

48. True, but we'd have a fighting chance to make the other. n/t

[fascisthunter]

64. It's Definitely Doable...

and should be pursuable.

[Greyhound]

84. Yet another con-game played on us by the parasite class and allowed to go on by a "compliant"

Congress.

1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific railroad - U.S. Supreme Court

In writing the case's headnote, a commentary with no legal status, the court reporter, J.C. Bancroft Davis, opened the headnote with the sentence: "The defendant corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

A handwritten note from Chief Justice Morrison Remick Waite to Davis said: "We avoided meeting the Constitutional question in the decision." And nowhere in the decision itself does the court say that corporations are persons.

J.C. Bancroft was president of the board of directors for the Newburgh & New York Railroad Company.

[Muttocracy]

93. !!! I learn new things on DU every day... Thanks. nt

[Greyhound]

98. You're welcome. Thom Hartman dug this up, apparently he was the

first person to go into the records for over a century and actually look at the decision. Hundreds of cases have been decided based on a non-precedent completely contrary to the ruling.

Amazing, ain't it?

[rug]

37. Investors own these companies ony in the sense that a john owns a hooker.

They have no interest in what the company does or how it does it. They will use it to extract a profit, sell it, and move on.

[eridani]

60. Their employees n/t

[Kablooie]

71. Me. I should own them.

[Demeter]

3. Exactly

Because I cannot see the value of modern Capitalism either, my skills are neither appreciated nor compensated. But I can stay alive by the sweat of my brow. How many "financiers" can do that?

[brooklynite]

7. So by extension, we shouldn't have bankers either?

After all, they just push money around.

[Cyrano]

13. Bankers??? I can still remember my fist bank experience

I took out a loan for about $300, but I didn't get $300. I got about $279 because they took out the first payment that I owed them. So there I was, paying interest on some imaginary $300 that I'd never actually received.

At one time, thieves were immediately identifiable. They wore masks and carried guns.

Very few of them wore suits and told you to sign papers that only a graduate of Harvard Law School could understand.

Please don't lecture me about the finer points of banking.

[Mme. Defarge]

17. I worked for a credit union

for almost 10 years, after a long career in manufacturing. Even though credit unions are member-owned, and less predatory than banks, I could never really relate to their so-called product. Early on I had a rather disorienting moment when it hit me that nothing about what they were doing was real. It was all just numbers -- accounting -- recorded electronically. It seemed like it would be so easy for everything to just evaporate into thin air.

[Greyhound]

30. You missed the best part, the $300 didn't exist until you borrowed it and they didn't own it,

Yet, they charged you money that was not created (your future labor/product) for a "risk" they don't take.

Banksters.:grr:

In our infinite wisdom we have allowed these parasites to not only get away with this, but have put our entire economy under their control.

Whatever happens in the next few years, we will be back here again as long as we allow this blatant confidence scheme to continue.

[Cyrano]

36. Hi, greyhoud1966. You just made my head hurt even more than it did.

We really have to find some way to make sanity the norm among our species.

My fear is that, for every problem that Obama solves, thousands of ill-intentioned moles will continue to burrow new tunnels into the evils of deceit, villainy and greed.

[Greyhound]

39. Sorry for the headache the more you learn the worse it gets.

I believe the answer is still for people to learn how things, especially money, really work. How to overcome 50 - 100 years of disinformation and anti-intellectualism, I have no idea.

One of my favorite quotes; "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Henry Ford

[Ghost Dog]

67. !

[druidity33]

62. might i suggest

bartering, enjoying Freecycle, investigating alternative currencies (ie. Berkshares, Ithaca Hours, TimeBanks), gardening, etc... any way to get off the teat of CONSUMER society.

I avoid using "money" whenever i can!

:)

[Muttocracy]

94. Freecycle and the free section of Craigslist are great

And I like the idea of local currency a lot

(http://www.ithacahours.org/faq.php if anyone wonders what we're talking about)

[druidity33]

99. huge fan...

I barter for all sorts of things. I've been pecking away at a resource map for the small town i live in. Old Mrs Hinsby has a huge butternut tree that i'm planning on harvesting from next year. Several neighbors with farmstead Apple trees and stuff like currants and gooseberries growing wild. Nobody uses these things anymore because they're "too difficult" or small. I eat wild edibles and fruits whenever i can!

My family loves the stuff too. My seven year old would rather walk around for 4 hours picking blackcap raspberries than watching TV. Wild allium, daylily bulbs and flowers, hazelnut, chestnut, walnut, raspberry, blackberry, beachplum, jostaberry, persimmon, pawpaw, etc. I've seen most of these things growing wild here in Western Massachusetts.

Lotsa free stuff out there... just competing with the critters really. Sorry squirrels but i likes me some nuts too!


:shrug:

[G_j]

66. nicely explained

thanks!

[soothsayer]

21. You're right. We shouldn't have banks. Usury sucks.

[Greyhound]

40. Not as currently defined. Not only do they contribute nothing and charge for it,

they are also a tremendous drain on the real economy, you know the one that makes everything else possible.

[dana_b]

4. no flames from me.

I don't see anything wrong with investing in and supporting companies that you think are worthwhile and will be profitable. What I see as evil (and this probably just goes to the root of man) is the selfishness and greed that can come along with it. The "I'll get mine and screw you" attitude is more than disheartening.

[lame54]

6. We cashed in my IRA for a down on our house...

and have purchased anymore because I came around to the same way of thinking - the stock market is the root...

we have retirement plans from our work but don't contribute nor pay much attention to it

we are trying to set ourselves up so we can support ourselves w/o it

If it crashes - oh well

If we eventually cash in - bonus

[OmahaBlueDog]

8. It's not the stock that is evil; it's the market driven speculation

A trip down main street (and the concept of "main street" is a myth, even in small town America) will reveal restaurants, beauty shops, realtors, plumbers, electricians -- most of whom are LLCs or Corporations, and all of which have stock. The difference is that the stock isn't traded publicly. The stock serves it's intended purpose -- to quantify who owns how much of the company, and to help ease transfer of ownership among owners.

Ideally, Wall Street's exchanges allow companies to raise capital to expand, make improvements, and hire workers. Ideally, investors, large and small, buy and hold shares in well -run enterprises, and make their money as the company they invest in grows in size and value, and (perhaps) pays shares of profits as dividends. The reality today, as it was in 1929, and as it probably always has been to greater or lesser extents, is that the Exchanges have become little more than casinos. Big players use capital to drive prices higher or lower, and the small investor takes a seat at the gaming table and hopes some of the luck rubs off.

[NorCalDem]

12. This, stocks are fine.

They serve their purpose quite well and I'm not so sure I would want to live in a world without them. The stock market honestly DOES help our economy grow. But as OmahaBlueDog correctly states, it's the rampant SPECULATION of stock values that leads to major problems, bubbles and busts.

[blurp]

19. No, it IS the stock conept itself.

Why should some people have greater control over the means of production than others?

Stock is in effect a right to vote.

A person without stock has no vote. They are disenfranchised -- even the employees.

I hope Obama does what needs to be done before private ownership of companies ruins this country.

[scisyhp1]

26. It is not the right to vote which is evil,

those decisions have to be made by someone. That is the profits
(dividends)that is the main contradiction of capitalism, which
makes it unfeasible in the long run. Why should anyone with money
to spend be eligible to expropriate the product of other people's
labor?

[deaniac21]

27. Stocks traded on the market, by definition, are public...

:eyes:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. No argument from me. The thing has become more powerful than countries

It has more power than countries. It has the power to destroy our countries. It takes our money and turns it into trash.

Financial companies have to be regulated.

We are finally looking at free market policies square in the face and what we're seeing is something evil and horrific. The whole intent of it is to enrich a few at the expense and the backs of the rest. Period!

[snappyturtle]

11. I'm gettin' up there and I remember a time when the USA made everything

we needed or wanted. You have hit the nail on the head. The gambling on Wall Street has taken from all of us. We need jobs like the ones that were outsourced and insourced. This entire financial debacle may be an opportunity for the least among us to collectively use our resources to build a future and to keep the gamblers out.

[NorCalDem]

14. This to some extent.

The problem facing our economy is not that we rely on too much stock, it's that we don't MAKE anything here anymore. Stocks are fine, no manufacturing base it not!

[snappyturtle]

15. Agreed....but I'd like to see employee owned business reaping the

profit and dividing it amongst themselves. Leave the stockholders out of it.

[NorCalDem]

51. I could get on board with that :) n/t

[snappyturtle]

61. Hop on board! nt

[Bravo Zulu]

16. My Dad was a Coal Miner, he always told me,

the company gets the profits and the miners get the shaft!

[Gregorian]

22. Oh.

Man.

And I had a design professor tell the class on the first day- The golden rule. He who has the gold, rules.

My father always called the stock market a horse race.

The shaft.

[formercia]

23. The parasites of Wall Street have sucked us dry.

As they unwind (take their money and run) their positions, we get left holding a bag full of IOU's for money that will probably never be repaid.

It is said that you can't get blood out of a turnip, but these guys came pretty close. They looted each other, then they looted us. There was no need to drain Social Security, Paulson gave it to them as a lump-sum.


Invest for your old-age they told us. Now, the sages tell us we should have invested in a Money Market fund.

Work hard, the 'American Dream' is just around the next bend.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

25. There are WAY too many levels of abstraction in some activities in the financial market, but

the plain-vanilla scheme of a business offering tiny pieces of itself to the general public is something that makes sense. Especially if it's a company, that, as you say, makes real things.

[Cyrano]

31. I'd really love to borrow your ouji board.

Sorry, but I fail to see how the average person, who has no insider information, can distinguish between a company of substance that deserves serious investors, and companies run by hucksters who are in it for the short-term buck.

"Plain vanilla" isn't as easy to taste as it used to be. Nor is the ability to distinguish between a worthwhile investment and a ripoff.

I don't mean to disparage your thoughts on this. It's just so damned hard today to distinguish a realistic enterprise from a shell game.

And it's decades of totally unregulated capitalism (otherwise known as highway robbery) that has brought us to where we are.

[HamdenRice]

78. "the average person, who has no insider information"

Very, very detailed information is made available to "the average person" but the average person almost never reads it. For a company to sell shares to the public, it has to file a vast amount of information with the SEC, which is free to the public and available on line.

Most people are (1) too lazy to look at it, or (2) more importantly, lack the skills to read and understand the information that's available.

From reading DU over the last few weeks since the financial crisis began in earnest, considering some of the claims and arguments I've read, it's pretty clear that only about 1 in 100 understand what a simple financial table like a "balance sheet" represents -- but that's the form of much of the information available to the public.

Certainly no one should have to learn this stuff just in order to save for retirement. The pension system was much better.

[Hannah Bell]

32. does your "ownership share" give you an equivalent share of decision-making power

in what the company does?

stock ownership isn't real ownership.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

35. In my opinion, it should.

Share ownership should necessarily carry a proportional vote right. I know it isn't like that, but it should.

[Hannah Bell]

44. agreed. and full information, too.

[HamdenRice]

77. Actually it does give you a right to vote

Most people simply don't exercise that right. But you probably have heard of share activists who buy one or two shares of a company and then go to the annual meeting to harangue the management about human rights or community investment.

If every citizen shareholder did that, the companies might (not necessarily but might) behave better.

Unfortunately, most of our ownership has been made indirect: you buy a share of a mutual fund which in turn buys blocks of shares in real companies, or your union pension fund buys shares. Instead of you, the citizen, telling GM or IBM what you think, management sits down with (and wines and dines) the "institutional investor" who supposedly represents your interest, but doesn't.

[anigbrowl]

28. What the market does is match buyers with sellers

It's confusing and ugly close-up, but so's an abbatoir (which puts food on your shelf, unless you're a vegetarian), a grain mill (ditto), a coal plant (which generates electricty for you) and so on. If, as you say, you didn't understand what was going on, then that inhibits your ability to make a reasoned judgment about it.

[Cyrano]

42. Try reading the OP again.

I didn't know what was going on when I worked at the NYSE, but I do now.

To put it as simply as possible, (if perhaps a bit obscenely), the world is made up of fuckors and fuckees.

Most of those who control the stock market are the fuckors. The vast majority of those who invest in things about which they can't possibly have sufficient information, are the fuckees.

The stock market may have, at one time, and intermittently, been a place to profit by investing in ideas, productivity and the future. Who can seriously make that case today? The stock market is nothing more than a casino in which the house always wins.

Do you really believe that today's market matches buyers with sellers? Sorry, but given where we are now, it has become blatantly apparent that the market's sole function for years has been to match fuckees with fuckors.

[Karenina]

46. Yup, yup and YUP!!

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true#

Danny Moses, who became Eisman’s head trader, was another who shared his perspective. Raised in Georgia, Moses, the son of a finance professor, was a bit less fatalistic than Daniel or Eisman, but he nevertheless shared a general sense that bad things can and do happen. When a Wall Street firm helped him get into a trade that seemed perfect in every way, he said to the salesman, “I appreciate this, but I just want to know one thing: How are you going to screw me?”

Heh heh heh, c’mon. We’d never do that, the trader started to say, but Moses was politely insistent: We both know that unadulterated good things like this trade don’t just happen between little hedge funds and big Wall Street firms. I’ll do it, but only after you explain to me how you are going to screw me. And the salesman explained how he was going to screw him. And Moses did the trade.

Both Daniel and Moses enjoyed, immensely, working with Steve Eisman. He put a fine point on the absurdity they saw everywhere around them. “Steve’s fun to take to any Wall Street meeting,” Daniel says. “Because he’ll say ‘Explain that to me’ 30 different times. Or ‘Could you explain that more, in English?’ Because once you do that, there’s a few things you learn. For a start, you figure out if they even know what they’re talking about. And a lot of times, they don’t!”

[anigbrowl]

74. So very wrong

If you want to unload your shares, you need a seller. Likewise if you want to get hold of some. You are assuming that all trades are a zero-sum game, but although that happens sometimes it doesn't characterize the majority of trades. Google 'Nash equilibrium' and get back to me. Alternatively, consider eBay - it's entirely possible for both a buyer and a seller to feel they did well on the same deal. Not inevitable, but not unlikely either.

Besides, even in the most brutal cut-throat market, some days you fuck and some days you get fucked, to use your terminology. That's life, when you get down to it. I'm big on cooperation but it's still a competitive world overall, and I have no particular desire to live as a bee.

[Greyhound]

29. K&R You are exactly right.

The whole thing is a scam from top to bottom. A Ponzi scheme by definition that only benefits the owners of the scheme.

[defendandprotect]

33. Agree - stockholders have no control over corps --

as a family business would present --

AND ... there is NO real money made on Wall St without speculation and

uncertainty which creates fluctuations --

basing a market on long term INVESTMENT as New Deal did ended much of

that -- which is why the crooks in charge wanted it overturned --

Agree - stockholders have no control over corps --

[baldguy]

34. A CEO comes in, doubles or triples to stock price - and he thinks he's done a fantastic job.

Meanwhile, the product the corporation produces is a cheap piece of shit that no one buys.

[jhrobbins]

38. I have often wondered how that whole process can work with all the

screaming and jumping. How do things get done?

[AngryAmish]

41. My horrible experience working in an operating room

Many moons ago, one of my first jobs was as an attendant in an operating room at Northwestern memorial Hospital. Us attendant would all sit together on a bench until called, and then go into an operating room to get something a nurse or surgeon wanted, leave, get that thing they wanted, bring it to them and go back to sit on the bench.

I really had no idea what all of these people were doing in the operating room, but every time I walked in there, I felt like I was in the middle of a madhouse. Blood everywhere. People shouting orders at each other. Patients awakening in worse pain than before they started. Terrible sounds of bones being sawn apart and hammered together again. I saw two people have heart attacks in the operating room over a period of a few weeks.

But here’s what really bothered me. I didn’t see where anything of value was being produced. Both my father and mother worked at places that actually made things. And for the life of me, I couldn’t see what was being made (aside from money) by these people who seemed to be creating nothing more torrents of blood and terrible pain.

One day I went out to lunch, walked a few blocks to the lake and kept walking. I decided I wasn’t going back to work (except to change my clothes and leave). Although I had no concept of the business being conducted at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, I had reached the conclusion that there was something about it that was terribly wrong.

I had grown up in a world where people either made goods, sold goods, repaired goods, hauled trash, made electricity flow, drove people where they wanted to go, and so many other tasks that were immediately identifiable. And right or wrong, I reached the conclusion that the place in which I was working had nothing to do with the real world, or the lives of anyone I knew. Little did I know that the doctors literally had people's lives in their blood stained hands.

Today, I understand the purpose of the hospital. And you can call me a believer in alternative medicine, a chiropractorist, or any other name you can think of, but I have never gone to a doctor and I feel there is something intrinsically evil about the entire concept.

I know that many of you won’t agree with me, but my case rests on the fact that today health care costs are out of control. No one should have that much power over the vast majority of us.

[Cyrano]

43. I can't tell whether you are making a case for universal health care or

mocking the original post.

If your point is that we should have universal health care, I couldn't agree more.

If you are making a comparison between the science of medicine and the voodoo of what passes for economics, I couldn't disagree more.

I guess I won't say anymore on this until you clarify exactly what your point is.

[AngryAmish]

52. With me, mocking is a safe assumption

[Cyrano]

53. Okay. Thank you for paraphrasing my OP. After all,

imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Further, mockery is often a highly unfavorable reflection of those who practice it.

[AngryAmish]

54. But I am sure you can see the analagy?

A young person walking into an operating room does not see the benefits. There is a bewildering array of machines and people. Many times people are wheeled in looking ok and exit much worse for wear.

If one had a visceral reaction to an operating room it should not follow that surgery should not be done. It just means that the person did not know what they were seeing.

[Cyrano]

56. Nice try.

Had I been working in an ER, I would have been aware of my own ignorance and might possibly have tried to enter medical school.

But your analogy between medical science of which I was ignorant, and a feeding frenzy of greed, of which I was also ignorant, is a looong stretch.

In the first case, a human being would have to be brain dead to not know what was going on.

In the latter case, only a fool would not have questioned what was going on around them. And in many cases, an embedded sense of morality might have taken hold and made any thinking person walk away.

The past eight years of the Bush administration have demonstrated that there are many, many people who lack any semblance of an instinctive morality.

[JanMichael]

57. Congratulations! I have been on DU for years; my wife has been reading since Day 2.

this is, hands down, the most lame attempt at a sarcastic analogy we have seen!

Awesome, and again, congratulations!

:toast:

:yourock:

[Frank Cannon]

79. I don't want to be mean, but that is really a fucking stupid analogy

I think I know what you were trying to do to be funny, but sheesh...

[brentspeak]

88. Your post = waste of bandwidth

[girl gone mad]

89. You couldn't see how saving people's lives..

and taking care of their injuries was producing something of value?

I will agree that there is a lot of unnecessary medicine that gets practiced and even some bad medicine, but treating an injured or sick person usually does create value for society. The person can get back to work if they are young and healthy enough. Knowing that their is a safety net for the old and sick ensures that the young and healthy will produce willingly.

This is a pretty dopey analogy.

[JI7]

90. i think most people would know why they were in the hopsital

they might not know the specifics of how to do things or what each equipment is used for. but they know they are trying to help people who are sick.

[leftofthedial]

49. that's capitalism.

people work and make the world.

capitalists use pieces of paper to take away the profit and to make more pieces of paper and, if all goes well, live like kings while using their money to steal more and more and more from the people who work.

[malaise]

50. Great post

K & R

[annabanana]

55. One Christmas season I had a part-time job, somewhere in a basement

downtown, sorting and filing stock certificates. Lots of them. They were nicely printed, most with garden variety "Virtues" in various stages of victorian nudity, draped across scrolls at the top of the page. Gerber stock had a baby. Disney stock had a mouse.

They meant nothing to me except as examples of graphic art... but another student (BBA student is my guess) practically drooled himself into dessication at the sight & feel of them. He would have stuffed them in his shirt if we weren't all being carefully watched.

[RagAss]

59. Cool...beats my Christmas season experience one year...Post Office !

The most mundane experience in the Universe !

[fascisthunter]

63. I Never Worked at the NYSE

but your description sounds consistant with what others have told me of their experiences working there or knowing those who did.

[leveymg]

76. I did. The Dow Index was barely at 800, and it looks like it may be going back there.

The primary lesson I took away from my short time working as a clerk on the Floor the NYSE in the mid-1970s is that these are the same people you meet at Belmont race track. They're bookies, touts, louts, and clinical gambling addicts. Some of them have expensive clothes and advanced degrees in economics. But, there wasn't more than a handful that a I'd ever trust with a dime of my money.

As for the market, itself. It's sole purpose is to convert real things -- companies, mortgages, savings -- into debt, and then to multiply it, ten, a hundred, a thousand times -- and to rake a percentage off the top.

The astonishing thing is that they've convinced the rest of us that their game is legal and useful. Go figure.

[fascisthunter]

80. Thank You for that Reply

Those of you who actually have seen the belly of the beast should all write about it here, so we all can get a better glance at the very thing that has brought our country to its proverbial knees. It's amazing as to how little we know or hear about the very thing that has such an impact on everybody, even those who have no investment in the NYSE.

[readmoreoften]

65. If I call you a socialist, its only out of respect and affection...

and solidarity.

[Pacifist Patriot]

68. If only we lived in a world where corporations were responsible ...

to stakeholders rather than shareholders.

[earth mom]

69. The stock market is nothing more than legalized gambling and a pyramid scheme

set up to benefit the few at the top with the most money. I'd love nothing more than to see the whole damn thing kicked to the curb.

:puke:

[Scriptor Ignotus]

70. a firm that producs goods issues shares of their stock to the market

other parties, corporate and individuals, buy the stock, the firm gets lots of money. The firm can now use this money to buy capital equipment and produce more goods at a cheaper price. Without the stock market, the firm would charge more and produce less. This means less made goods, less sold goods, less repaired goods, less trash hauled, less electricity flowing, less people driving because of increased costs and lower production.

You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Cyrano]

72. Sorry, but most firms threw out their investors with the bathwater.

There are still many people who believe in the integrity of the stock market. And there are also many people who still believe in the tooth fairy.

I pity those who, have been screwed for years, yet still hold onto beliefs that the stock market is a fair, equitable and sane place into which to invest some, too much, or all of one's savings.

Just how many times do people need to get screwed before they realize they are being screwed???

Perhaps ideology has the power to overcome reason, financial loses, and to perpetuate plain old ignorance and stupidity.

I guess we'll have to ask those who have lost everything they own because of their blind faith in "the magic of the marketplace." They are to be pitied for their failure to grasp the fact that thieves no longer need masks and guns.

[Indi Guy]

75. Extremely well expressed...

I grew up the same way you did. People create worth.

[mudesi]

81. You disparage something simply because you don't understand it

Try to educate yourself, lose the ignorance, and then get back to us.

[Cyrano]

82. I didn't understand the stock market at the time I worked there.

As I said, that was many moons ago and I've since learned what it's about.

Try reading the original post again and get back to me.

[mudesi]

83. You still don't understand it (nm)

[Cyrano]

85. Thank you for your opinion, Obi Wan

[mudesi]

86. Not an opinion

You have clearly demonstrated in the OP and in the thread that you have no clue how the stock market works or what its purpose is.

[Cyrano]

91. Ahhh, I can finally live in harmony now that you have handed down

TRUTH from the mount.

But here's where my gratitude (and replies) end.

If you feel the need to "get in the last word," be my guest.

[lovuian]

87. your right its all a scam and it really is nothing

but its based on workers working as slaves for money

[undeterred]

92. Well, I worked with financial analysts

They were all University of Chicago or Northwestern MBAs. Clean cut, arrogant young men making salaries that made them feel important and helped them get trophy wives. It was a far cry from the Stock Exchange but they talked about money and stock all day long. We had different values, I knew that. But the day it came into focus was when we had left over box lunches from a meeting- the kind you order and pay $15 each for. I ordered more than we needed and these men were too good to eat a box lunch that came in yesterday. They told me to just throw them out. Perfectly good, well prepared unspoiled food.

I asked my boss if I could give the food away and he said sure. There are rules about what kind of food you can give to a homeless shelter. I put the six box lunches in 2 shopping bags and told them I was going to give them away. The MBAs couldn't believe it. "Where are you going to find homeless people?" "You shouldn't give food to people who don't work." They were horrified. I was appalled.

I walked around the block downtown Chicago and had no trouble finding 6 people who were asking for money on streetcorners who were glad to accept a fancy box lunch. A little kindness makes people so happy and it blesses the giver- and its not like I paid for the lunches. When I came back the comments were like I had done something immoral. They actually didn't see people begging, they blocked out these people who "deserved to be poor" because they didn't work. (I thought about how hard these guys didn't actually work some afternoons and their sense of entitlement to perks and bonuses.)

Throwing away good food you couldn't consume seems like a waste to me. Throwing it away when your neighbor is starving right in front of you because you judge them to be undeserving seems like a spiritual death. I doubt that everyone on Wall Street is like this, but this contempt for the poor and indifference to human need is a hallmark of the Republican mind. These aren't the kind of people I want to see in power. They were spiritually bankrupt.

[Cyrano]

95. That's a poignant story. Sometimes, you've really got to wonder

if evolution bypassed a portion of the human species.

IMO, the lack of empathy cannot be excused, or defended. It's an emptiness that exists in people who really suck a whole lot, or have some kind of mental deficiency.

[undeterred]

97. Exactly.

And these were incredibly smart people with all the advantages in life. Exception in the group was my boss, who was a biracial black man in an otherwise all white corporate environment. He appreciated what I did, and he would never commit to being a Democrat or Republican- but he was a real person.

[Muttocracy]

96. wow, a very telling story. I remember hearing business students

talking about business stuff, what they wanted to do with their lives, etc., and it not making any sense to me - neither in terms of actual production nor an intellectual pursuit like research or writing - and it was all about moving up a corporate ladder.

I hear my alma mater is having very few financial firms come up for on-campus interviews now, and the booming business majors are seeing students transfer to other majors.