Bill Gates creates thousands of jobs, therefore he is important to our economy. Joe fixes Bill Gate's car. Who is expendable? The job creator or automobile mechanics? Our economy is a system in which we all play a role, some might seem more significant than others, but the bottom line is it cannot function without all the players.
I cant believe im even going to post to this but i almost fell of my chair laughing. First, do traders benefit society. Well, that depends on if you believe in the Free markets and the laws of supply and demand. first and formost, traders dont worry about being "nobel to society or their benefits to society when the are in a trade. The benefits are a byproduct of a traders success. The tax he/she pays, the TAX he/she pays AND THE TAXS HE/SHE PAYS. Traders are the last post standing as the world of Capitalism is being attacked, degraded, re-written, and depicted as the root of all evils. Wouldnt it be nice if everyone was ultruistic by nature. However, I have never heard a fellow trader, or myself, ask......."Do i have a higher purpose to serve my community? Do i postively effect the lives of my neighbors?.... while in a trade or entering/exiting a trade. The fact is, if you were a trader during 2001 and 2002 and shorted, you did a DISERVICE to ur fellow Neighbor by reducing the value of his 401K. .....you would never want to short a stock or bet against the market because this could negitively impact your neighbors. It is not a traders purpose to ask the question of his/her benefits to society.... a traders purpose is to MAKE MONEY...THATS RIGHT MAKE AS MUCH FU#$ MONEY as the trader can. (with in the legal guidlines that have been established.) That is how a true trader thinks........and a successful one as well.
Not so simply solution: a nurse has a miserable salary. The question is : is it normal that the more a profession seems to contribute to society the less it seems to be paid ?
"the purpose of our lives is to be happy" - dali lama we live in a system. we learn to work and survive within the system. we use the system. we are constantly being reminded that we are human, through pain, sufferring, joy and spirit. being a human can never be taken away from us, it is a God given right. the wise accept the system for what it is, like driving a car from A to B, I guess, and being human for what that involves. we learn to use the system to feed the human, rather than let the human feed the system. Not sure if this this makes some kind of sense. For me, I understand it, but I have ot put it into practice.
That implies that Bill Gates doesn't contribute much to society!! The productivity enhancements from the computers we use are the only reason societies all over the world can carry the tax burdens they have for their socialism!!
The implied question behind "What good are we traders for?" is "What should I be doing with my life?" A very good read that asks this question of over 400 professionals is "What Should I Do With My Life?" by Po Bronson. Bronson wanted to interview Wall Street pros and Silicon Valley people who rode the bubble up to great success and then found themselves with a 'life choice' and major change in direction. Each chapter is a description of an individual and the choices he/she faced. Bronson also wrote "Bombardiers", about bond traders in a large corporation, and "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest". Good reading... ramora
po bronson is a GREAT writer. totally enjoyable all the books you mentioned. how about providing for our families and having the time to spend with them as a "good" traders can do ?? best, surfer
.. for the specialist's salary! Seriously, even as a new trader, I don't have any money to give but there are ways to donate your time. I'm currently trying to volunteer as a cook for a homeless shelter, it's not much, but it's something.
Traders involve in the process of "price discovery" and set price for all in society. We help answer the question of "how much" thru the bid/ask process. Without this information there will be no free market society. So, traders are doing everybody good and the successful traders are paid awesomely because they're "serving" a huge huge population by finding the "right price". Someone would argue technical traders doesn't care about "right price" and are parasitic. Well, they still provide the liquidity needed for price discovery... So when someone "makes" a dollar, he/she did something good as long as it is a mutually agreed transaction on both sides (ie. trade). The only thing that does no good to society (a cost) is to forcefully take it away from someone, like robbing. Taxing is another example of unwillful transaction that is costing society because the price of government services is arbitrarily (no difference than robbing except it's legal). That's why it is best to privatize as much government services as possible and reduce tax to minimum (well in ideal world).