Quote:
Originally Posted by FuglyStick
The country needs to redefine it's ideas of what "capital" is. What got us into the mess in the first place is investing in "numbers," rather than in "product." The shell game of swapping numbers from one column to another in the pursuit of wealth, rather than investing in actual goods, was doomed to fail because there was never any actual product coming from all the money being flung around. Unless investors start putting their money towards actual production, any recovery by the stock market will be doomed to fail again.
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See this makes sense to me. And nothing being done right now addresses, in my mind, the numbers swapping, shell game behavior that got us here to begin with. People weren't investing in a company because they thought the company was of capital value, they bought it hoping it's stock would go up so they could sell it... sell it soon. Make a profit at any cost.
I have friends who bought and sold stock based, partly, on how many lay-offs a company would issue when ownership transfered. The logic being the company would be able to squeeze more profit out of less costs. Thus the stock would rise and they'd sell. Great! But what about the saps that got laid off? what happens when it's your company being bought and sold? After you're laid off will you buy stock in your old company? How long can an economy continue to squeeze more out of less?