I CREATE value and security for my family by trading. I PRODUCE money to pay the bills and buy stuff for my family by trading. I HELP my family with that money and I also HELP the global economy because I use the money from trading to buy products produced by others. Don't get a "victim" mentality. Trading is an honorable profession as long as you are not intentionally screwing or cheating others. By being on the profitable side of a trade does not mean you took advantage of another and should feel sorry. Whens the last time you lost money on a trade and the person on the other side called you to apologize because he felt bad by taking your money?
Before I was a trader, I was an english teacher in South Korea for a year and before that I was a yoga instructor for many years. I have literally taught thousands of people how to meditate, do yoga poses, dietary advise etc. and you know what? I lived on the poverty line all of those years. I ended up getting a bad back because of doing 15 yoga classes a week to be able to pay for food and rent. I have a degree in accounting, yet I chose a lifestyle that I felt did the most good for the most number of people. Nowadays, instead of communicating and inspiring people, I sit infront of the pc most of the day waiting for my next settup. I think it's wrong to have a society that underpays those who do the most and yet rewards those who merely shuffle bits of paper and help fuel the creation of an ever larger bubble economy. As an example, 95% of the volume in fx is speculative, way too much to be facilitating a properly functioning market. Imagine that, only 5% of the $3 trillion a day volume is actually for what the market was designed for (hedging and exchanging). Perhaps another 3-5 times more than that would be appropriate to help with market liquidity, but a ratio of 20 speculators to 1 'end user' is way too much. As a trader I make far more than as a teacher/yoga instructor, yet am I really giving back to society that much more? Are my talents being put to best use? Is the fx market really that desperate for extra speculation in order for it to function more perfectly? I don't think so.
Very well said, except for the part about not lying at the end of the day. Did you ever hear of someone named nysekiller?
Perhaps everyone has his /her own vision about trading as a business/ profession. Among so many possible/ available views, here is one of them: The process/outcome and the capability/knowledge of Forecasting. Just like some other Forecasting professions such as: - Forecasting weather, - Forecasting scientific/ medical discovery, - Forecasting sales of a product/ service, - Forecasting an election result, - Forecasting population growth, - Forecasting economic growth, - Forecasting an upcoming earthquake, - ...
"It's all paper pushing & games, with no real benefit, only over consumption, waste of resources & exploitation of third world labor" utter rubbish. collectivist, discredited, trash bin heap of history, empircally verified as false - rubbish there has never been a greater wealth creation machine in the history of the world than the USA. although, recently many other innovative countries are beating us (in the short run). props to them. wealth is not a zero sum game. we are not a manufacturing economy. we LONG ago ceased to be an economy where most people either grew stuff or made stuff. because we have efficiencies of scale and innovation that has made yield/acre and production/man-hour increase geometrically - it's called PROGRESS. the median of our poorest income quintile is better off than the 2nd lowest income quintile median was, less than 100 years ago. for the first time in HISTORY, hunger is no longer among the primary afflictions of the poor in the USA. ironically, OBESITY is a much greater problem (see: lack of discipline, desire for instant gratification, etc.) i trade index futures. i help with liquidity, and i take part in the great price discovery process. i use my profits to INVEST in great american companies - some speculative and some bellwethers. nobody is forcing you to trade. traders voluntarily engage in the wonderful opportunities that small businesses offer - the potential to work for oneself, to increase one's station in life, and to take part in the great american economy. our economy works, and the markets are a vital part of why they work. i am proud to take part. and i served for many years as a firefighter and cop, and i'm proud of that too. so, ;p
Very applicable to question presented by the OP: Happiness is not to be achieved at the command of emotional whims. Happiness is not the satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes you might blindly attempt to indulge. Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions. Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury of the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires--so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them. The symbol of all relationships among such men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot are traders, both in manner and spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder, or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit--his love, his friendship, his esteem--except in payment and in trade for human virtue, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the trader and held him in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of the sneers: a trader is the entity they dread--a man of justice. Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged
A little liquidity is needed for any economy in order to facilitate trade. We passed those requirements years ago. Now we just have bubblefest.
Every time you sell, you helped the buyer; everytime you buy you helped the seller...... The traders create the markets, no traders no markets the economy is suffered. Always a learner
My point exactly. I expect very few of ET to truly grasp what is going on in the world, and keep believing into this "wealth creation" nonsense being preached by the current administration. Even though the numbers are there, a study on the futures markets will show that they have exponentially beyond reflecting real world supply. It's a paper pushing economy, and it's far from the first time this has happened in history. Of course, anyone critisizing this phenomenon, gets called a socialist, collectivist or better yet a communist. Ironically, Stalin's USSR was run like one giant monopolistic corporation, where do you think he got this methodology from. Yeah I think an economy based on speculation, service industry and debt-financed consumption is exactly what the doctor ordered. It's different this time, lol.