Re: The Way We Live Now

Saint George's Dragon of the Cavern # howled:
Ashikaga the Forcible Masked Drag Racer of Niceness wrote:
<snicker snack>
drama of that name? The history repeats itself isn't it. Though the story
took place around 1870's England, but the practice sounds just like dot.com
era. During that crazy period people sell nothing for top dollars,
effectively transfering the wealth to the greedy few (and those who know
how things work). And bring with it a collash of the new rich with the old
rich. People marry for wealth. Old riches (gentry nobilities), despite
"cannot afford" not to deal business with the "new economy" Suchet's
<snicker snack>

Speculative bubbles have been a phenomenon for hundreds of years if
not more. My favourite is the famous tulip bubble where tulip prices
got ridiculously high. People draw analogies all the time between
historic bubbles and the dot com bubble (or the current housing market
bubble).

Although it is probably not a good thing it is easy to understand
where bubbles come from. Normal healthy speculation required to raise
capital for ventures that are risky but promise benefit if successful
is a necessary part of business. But of course just the fact that
people buy into a venture will in itself increase the value of stakes
into it and so the potential for a speculative bubble exists, where
values are propped up merely by ever higher expectations rather than
reasonable results.

I really hate speculation. It'll exist on its own without any
encouragement. And yet we have to be wary of speculation and submit to it,
not because we believe in it, but it's always better to play safe than
sorry. So in a way, we are feeding into it to make it into a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

Everyone knew the stock market was going to bust back in the 1997, and yet
everyone wanted to have a piece of it while it lasted. And when it finally
busted, it was more than half a decade after the initial concern. Yet, a
lot of "professionals" still try to comfort non-insider investors so they
can keep the market going so they can safely exit the market. And that's
essentially what's said in "Liar's Poker" and again, being portrayed by
David Suchet in "The Way We Live Now", where he said (verbatim) what's
wrong selling stocks that have no tangible backings as long as everyone
makes the profit along the way?

There is a big fallacy in that argument. Not everyone who got into the
market is educated on the matter and they do not know the game the big boys
are playing, and are most susceptible to the loss. They are, not
coincidentally, quite often the ones who cannot afford the loss. They want
to have a good retirement, but have no knowledge on investing and rely on
people's recommendation.

Well, when the market busted, I was actually quite happy some people take
their loss and leave. I only hope they learned their lessons and move on
and don't ever invest based on greed.

I suspect the culture of business (and life) has always been a mixed
bag of men concerned with getting things done and those concerned with
making money anyway they can.

I suppose it's the classic extraverts vs. introverts. Not everyone treats
the same situation the same way.

My personal direction has always been doing things so everyone will enjoy
it, while making profit (monetary or not) along the way. It's a very
group-oriented way of thinking. I noticed if I see things this way and
expect people to do the same, I would get frustrated. Most people are more
focused on self-interests, like put as money in their money as possible
without thinking whether that'll damage other's people's pockets, or
perhaps do some irreversible things to their family. I thought how could
those people be happy, knowing their own success is based on other people's
suffering, then I realized in their world, other people don't exist, so
they didn't do any harm to anybody....

--
Ashikaga -a29
.

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