Post AzTd7HWMlcw7y6FC6q by CosmicTraveler@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by CosmicTraveler@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AzSvPM42DdhXHtnf7Y by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-22T11:16:03Z
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Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis. I'm just... shook. "Girl? You live like this?"The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer pubic companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
(DIR) Post #AzSvcqqV5JCoWIuAjI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-22T11:18:29Z
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The whole pretext is that public companies provide the capital that allow companies to take on large projects and make money. This makes their stock worth owning since they will give you some of the profit in the form of a dividend. This description of markets is so quaint and out of line with what is really going on the when I say it people don't respond, they just start hyperventilating and laughing. But, come on! Isn't that supposed to be the whole point?I'm so disappointed.
(DIR) Post #AzSvuM7M4ONMQm8S8W by SKleefeld@retro.pizza
2025-10-22T11:21:35Z
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@futurebird When I was working on my MBA, one of the most difficult classes for me was the one where we were learning about annual reports, balance sheets, company valuations, etc. I happened to have been friends with the professor beforehand, and when i mentioned I was having difficulty, she said, "Yes, I expected that. People like you often do. You're very analytical. You want 2 + 2 to always equal 4." It turns out that they make 2+ 2 equal whatever the hell they feel like, and just use accounting obfuscation to justify it.
(DIR) Post #AzSw3Sc1IC1XBCouEi by adriano@lile.cl
2025-10-22T11:23:14Z
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@futurebird “yeah yeah I hear you, very noble, very nice. But what if I wanted to bet on whether this company will do badly in the next few days?”Sheesh
(DIR) Post #AzSwrC3x65EQKcbFIm by ligasser@social.epfl.ch
2025-10-22T11:32:11Z
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@futurebird Do you know whether there are some statistics about the size of it all? I would like to have something like the following:https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/money_credit_banking/monetary_aggregates/html/index.en.htmlbut also including the stock market.And then showing which percent of the population owns the different part of this money.
(DIR) Post #AzSxDiqnsBmqOOByG8 by vikxin@beach.city
2025-10-22T11:29:28Z
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@SKleefeld @futurebird So...lying? Institutionalized lying?
(DIR) Post #AzSxDjk6Ya1T9u48SO by SKleefeld@retro.pizza
2025-10-22T11:35:58Z
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@vikxin @futurebird Yup. In another class, we studied the Enron scandal as that was still recent-ish. The professor flatly said the big lesson companies took from it was: always have a designated fall guy. Literally. Not "be more ethical" or even "cover your tracks better" but "make sure to have someone just below the C-suite execs to take the blame if/when your illegalities are discovered."I was a cynic before, but studying business showed me a whole new depth of how blatantly corrupt the business world is. And that was nearly 20 years ago; I'm sure it's worse now.
(DIR) Post #AzSy4XfMBhZv3H1ZbM by spara@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T11:45:51Z
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@futurebird You're gonna love the stock market more when you realize that seven companies are basically the entire market because of their outsized influence based on their market capitalization
(DIR) Post #AzSy6TrvHEvpqzpIqe by tantramar@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T11:46:14Z
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@futurebird Corporations: we must maximize profits by reducing costs — especially waste — wherever possible.Shareholders: great! stop radically overpaying the magical wizard who understands nothing & is usually dead wrong.Corporations: not like that.
(DIR) Post #AzT2D9iezRfFCmvrc0 by benfulton@urbanists.social
2025-10-22T12:32:13Z
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@futurebird Are you wanting to try to make money in the market, or is this an intellectual exercise?
(DIR) Post #AzT3Xex2gDPboc04fY by samiamsam@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T12:47:06Z
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@futurebird every now and then i tell someone who wants to 'explain' the stock market to me that it is nothing but gamblingthey never have a response and change the subject
(DIR) Post #AzT5lP30o2VQSATQci by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-22T13:11:57Z
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@wavesculptor To be more clear those who are invested in stocks benefit from the disconnect between stock prices and the ability of the company to make money and pay dividends if the market is going up due to speculative trading. They make money by selling the stock rather than through the dividends.
(DIR) Post #AzT7Fe6zSiolodJrJw by sewblue@sfba.social
2025-10-22T13:28:44Z
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@futurebird It's not made sense to me either.As a company, I sell stock once, and in return I need to pay a form a sort of interest payment, a dividend, paid in perpetuity, with a crap ton of rules and regulations now guiding my operations? It's not a loan or a bond, but still a form of debt. I got the cash infusion one,It makes zero for most corporations except for the people who become rich off the process. Obligations for a cash infusion that may have occurred a generation ago, or more. It makes sense for an operation with massive infastructure needs, where the capital needs are huge. Shipping, railroads, electricity etc. For a company with mostly IP? Someone got rich.It is a leash on a corporation, to allow an outsider to profit from someone else's work effort.
(DIR) Post #AzT7qdmPevPdV7KojY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-10-22T13:35:26Z
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@sewblue Consider a tax on speculative gains that starts high and decreases the longer you hold a stock. All the way to zero. (and to be nice it’d only be on gains over some fat threshold say 100k)
(DIR) Post #AzTAAtesX5koRmb5jE by sewblue@sfba.social
2025-10-22T14:01:29Z
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@futurebird I think Wall Street and the very would scream bloody murder at that idea. Because it a tax they would have to pay. So much of what they do is short term speculation.
(DIR) Post #AzTBXn8z1G18rE9wq8 by maj@cosocial.ca
2025-10-22T14:16:49Z
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@futurebird When I was little my father told me he bought me some shares but I heard "chairs". For years I thought the stock market was a furniture company with warehouses full of chairs and some had my name on them. Like a memorial bench you see in the park. Honestly, makes much more sense than the reality.
(DIR) Post #AzTHyr9Up9gupggigq by sarae@ecoevo.social
2025-10-22T15:28:56Z
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@futurebird the book I recommend to people on this journey is Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street, which in recent weeks I've had both my partner and older child readingI reread it and it really holds up and his writing makes it easy to get through
(DIR) Post #AzTXco21LP443AhOe8 by curiously@mastodon.au
2025-10-22T18:24:13Z
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@futurebird please be advised that your updated subscription no longer includes premium disappointed functionality. If you wish to continue being disappointed you will need to upgrade to a Premium Subscription of $49.99* and all your personal data per month." $999.99 and both kidneys after the first month.
(DIR) Post #AzTd7HWMlcw7y6FC6q by CosmicTraveler@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T19:25:44Z
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@futurebird I remember learning in high school economics that the stock market ran on "confidence" and have forever remained shook.
(DIR) Post #AzThxZ9Orj3VWKgk8e by EthicalProfessor@mstdn.social
2025-10-22T20:20:01Z
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@futurebird @sewblue That would still allow planning to reduce the effective tax rate for multi-billionaires to below that of teachers.Capital Gains should always face a rate higher than wage income.
(DIR) Post #AzTicWeN4DSVddhpPk by smellsofbikes@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T20:27:25Z
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@futurebird @sewblue reciprocal of holding time. I think there have been some halfway serious proposals to institute this.
(DIR) Post #AzTj9Am9PuJ7LsucXg by level98@mastodon.social
2025-10-22T20:33:21Z
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@futurebird Towards the time I graduated from Uni I had the opportunity to work as a trader, or whatever. The financial corps visited the Uni in what was called (probably still is) the "Milk Round" - they were trying to milk talent (they were particularly keen to do this from Oxford / Cambridge).I had the opportunity to make loads of money. I turned it down, because the *main purpose* was to enrich oneself, rather than anything constructive.That was over 30 years ago. It has ever been so.
(DIR) Post #AzToUFSjgaYrjwhSds by isaackuo@spacey.space
2025-10-22T21:33:10Z
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@futurebird What you say is the "whole pretext" might be true, but the reason the pretext exists is, quintessentially, to lure us dupes out of our money so the Mr Moneybags can make even more money than they already have, off the backs of the dupes.What laws and enforcement exists, exists to get us dupes to "invest" in a scheme that is deeply rigged against us.
(DIR) Post #AzUfW0rEFjuOaqsnXk by ersatzmaus@mastodon.social
2025-10-23T07:27:19Z
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@futurebird @sewblue We had something like that here... taper relief.But I think your formulation is slightly different and would work better than the setup we had.
(DIR) Post #AzUmQs2EKKQXShWWfY by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
2025-10-23T08:44:43Z
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@futurebird @sewblue If you think the stock market is bad, wait until you look at commodities markets.Originally, you sold commodities (wheat, steel, whatever) when you produced it. It turns out that it’s quite useful to know when you plant a field of corn how much you will be able to sell it for. It’s also useful if, for example, you are building a skyscraper and it will take two years to know how much steel will cost in a year’s time, so you can budget properly.So the idea of a futures market came about. Rather than buying steel that exists now, you buy the ability to buy steel at a fixed price in the future. Or the ability to sell corn at a fixed price in a year’s time. And now both producers and consumers can operate with significantly reduced risk. Having a guaranteed ability to sell X tons of grain at a known price next year lets you plan the amount that you want to plant, and maybe grow a bit more than you know you can sell because you won’t make a loss if you can sell more. So far, so sensible.(Aside: a lot of the antitrust laws in the USA exist because of one person who managed to achieve an onion monopoly. This is an amazing story, and well worth reading, but it’s most fun because laws are written as changes to existing laws, so a lot of the antitrust laws in the USA are of the form ‘onions, and other things that are not onions’).The problem with this model is that it lacks liquidity. A lot of people (especially on the consumer side) don’t want to plan so far ahead. They will buy wheat if it’s available, but might buy corn if it’s cheaper. They may buy steel if it’s available, but might just put of construction to next year if it’s too expensive. And that makes it harder to plan. To address this, you allow speculation.Speculation was quite controversial. A speculator buys and sells commodity futures, but does not want the commodities. They are selling a service where they take risk in exchange for profit. If they expect the price of some commodity to be $110 next year, they might offer to buy it for $100. The producer gets a worse price than they would probably get if they didn’t trade futures, but they get to guarantee that price. If their production cost is $50, they make a big profit, guaranteed. The speculator then has to find someone willing to actually buy the commodity for over $100. If they do, they make money. If they don’t, they take the loss, the producer does not.There were a lot of regulations around speculation, including the ratio of producers and consumers to speculators that could participate in the market. It was viewed as a necessary evil to increase liquidity. And liquidity is important. Markets don’t function without it. But then some smart and evil people managed to convince the government (pretty sure it was Reagan, it’s a fair bet that anything bad in market regulation was probably his fault) that speculation existed to reduce risk (true) and that reducing risk is good (true) so it’s important to relax regulations to reduce risk for speculators (false, the entire reason speculators exist is to take on risks from people in the real economy). So now there’s far more trading between speculators than between buyers and sellers of the actual commodity. There’s no shortage of liquidity, but the flip side of liquidity is volatility (both mean, roughly, that prices can move rapidly. If you want that to happen, it’s liquidity, if you don’t then it’s volatility).A lot of the same thing happened with the stock market.
(DIR) Post #AzV5xFzofqKOAhYEcq by gbargoud@masto.nyc
2025-10-23T12:23:35Z
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@futurebird I was thinking of high frequency grading and how that's just trying to take as much of the profit off of someone else's sale as possibleI would very strongly support a small per transaction tax. Small enough not to affect people who are buying and selling stocks to have them but large enough to kill the idea of buying and selling stocks multiple times per second
(DIR) Post #AzVffKb2QaipZoiGm0 by strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2025-10-23T19:03:47Z
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@sewblue> It makes zero for most corporations except for the people who become rich off the process... which despite the various theoretical rationalisations, is the *only* reason corporations and stockmarkets exist. They were created to prevent free enterprise from decentralising wealth and economic power as feudalism collapsed.@Rushkoff's Life Inc. has a chapter on this. The late, great David Graeber wrote about it too.@futurebird