Pabst - nice post.... Every profession has stigmas and every professional has insecurities about their chosen fields. ie lawyers, doctors, politicians, traders, priests (cough cough) all have stereotypes.... You have to learn to be your own dog in my opinion. If you define yourself by what others think of you the your life will never be happy no matter what you do. Simply put, you can't control what other people think so wasting energy trying to do so will only lead to incessant frustration. Happy 2006!
"traders are not producing goods or services" I diagree. Traders provide liquidity in the market to keep it efficient.
Well said. Of course it comes down to what you believe about yourself. If you build up some BS story about the nobility of your profession that you don't even believe, you're going to spend your life feeling like a fraud. If you are comfortable with your choices for reasons that make sense to you, even if others don't understand them, well then it's a lot easier to get over what others think, because the root of that problem is their understanding, not you. Fletch
You're one guy I find hard to pigeonhole, Pabst. Every time I think I can safely assume you're just another one of the far right wing crowd, you come through with something like this. I noticed you equate 'contribution' with 'society's positive perception of you'. I contribute, but in my weird way of thinking, I am doing it for my own good; it's a selfish act, since I feel that I will ultimately benefit, and not in some mystical way. If I treat my employees right, if I contribute to their well being, they will reward me with greater productivity. If I contribute to the food bank, maybe it saves someone from having their house broken into this weekend. I don't think contribution is always associated with a need to court society. There are a lot of PC ideas of 'equality' and 'victimization' and 'rights' that are nonsense. PC police types ask us to undermine ourselves for the sake of those who are too lazy or weak-minded to make their own way. Sure, some of the food bank people are like that. But there are also a few single moms who were good people who married the wrong guy who broke her jaw once too often before emptying their bank account and taking off. I don't mind helping her, and again I think it helps me in the end just as much if not more. And again, not because I feel warm all over or because I can tell my friends about it. Does all of that sound pretty pie-in-the-sky to you? Anyway, an interesting post.
Speculators are vital to well functioning markets as they provide liquidity for the investors. Most do not understand that as they do not even understand the basic & simple market mechanics.
I don't think you have to worry about that when you are Li Ka Shing, one of the richest man in the world.
Even if you are a doctor, lets say a dentist, people can still choose not to respect you and take you as a money sucker. You cannot beg for respect cuz u r in a special kind of profession. If you really need it, let people have to respect you.
The only negative stigma that I think anyone might attach to Traders would be that they are pursuing a career which makes no attempt to conceal its identification with the capitalist system. For those in society who like to pretend that money is not the oil (literally and figuratively) behind almost everything we do, then fine - I don't want the respect of morons anyway. My experience has been that most people are envious of traders for being willing to do what they want, when they want, and how they want to do it.
The social influences of being a trader vary from place to place. In the West trading is only a half day anyway so there's lots of time to do other stuff. The spectrum of professions in the financial industry put traders on the fringe as well. The connection of money to trading is just like the connection of money to anything. Money is usually just an attendent convenience of the way things work. Conversational settings where the discussion of professions or money are settings that are just usually passing superficial exchanges primarily for the benefit of the offerer. Getting down to where the rubber meets the road, my guess is that what I do with profits is a lot more important than what I do with the time I spend making them. My commodities participation, I know, is most related to assuring that the particular commodity application is able to carry out its intended purpose of making less risk in that particular industry. Wheat is the classic example for the farmer and the baker; both use commodities to guarantee their annual profits. Futures indexes do the same for other business and banking people. The American and global free enterprise systems are designed for my ownership and participation. I own. What everyone owns builds wealth for them as that which they own adds value to the economies. All of us owners make it possible for the free enterprise system to work. My money, there as ownership makes the economy function. The fact that I move my wealth to best places (for me) to enhance it is just the natural outgrowth of anyone's natural desire to make the best of things and situations. I simply like the idea that I move my capital every 6 to 8 days in equities. It is always "working" for me and working for the entity in which it is invested. I simply retrieve about 10% each time I move my money, short investment after investment. For my intraday trading of commodity index futures, I feel that I am there opposite someone who is minimizing risk in his business or banking endeavor. It is true I sometimes wind up opposite a speculator who is making a bad guess and betting upon it. My assumptions all the time, as I make money as a trader, are that the others with whom I participate have the same interests which are, participating in wealth building. None of this is a zero sum game for me, because I have seen the financial system grow and grow and grow as time and rollovers pass. In 50 years or so I have seen the econmy continually exceed most prognosticators expectations by a long shot. They cannot, for some reason, see the potential of our earth continually expanding and growing at a fine pace. I was told in grad school that wealth comes from ownership and not from the salaries of those who work for owners. I chose to be an owner instead of a worker. It turns out I change those who are working for me a little more frequently than other owners do. Bill Gates is rarely working for me these days because owning the company he works for is not too appealing compared to those whose price varies by 10 percent net every 6 to 8 days. My primary social influence of being a trader is related to where I put my profits in the community in which I live. My community and other places where social support and help is needed know that my family can be counted upon for time and money. I've enjoyed, particularly, the time I have had to write on cutting edge social issues all my life. Books have a great scoial impact. Giving away copyrights and royalties has alway been possible for me alsobecause I have had market profits from trading there in abundance. Today, there is a need for more and more to be done to help out all over the place. When anyone teaches someone else to make money as well, there is a nifty ongoing social influence that comes along as well. Being a trader is a very healthy thing for any community when that trader is passing forward his knowledge skills and experience to others. Traders are like owners we build wealth where we live and trade. We put that money into our communities. The ET community doesn't do it to any extent but it is always possible that ET as a community might grow up someday and take what the potential of profitable trading represents and spread it around a little bit. Were ET healthy, this would be happening. One of the neatest examples that I have ever seen is of an ex drug dealer who learned to trade and then pass it along to others. Uneducated except on the street, he is one of the greatest family guys I have known simply because he values himself and his skills and turns right around to help others get a leg up. Very cool ideed....