Sorry for the random thoughts, messy arrangement, etc. - I say this ahead of time because if you decide to read this you'll quickly learn I'm not looking to be clever or organized. I am simply doing so to put what I'm thinking, grounded or not, out there in the randomness that is the web. I chose this site because it is mundane and lost in the insanely disorganized and egocentric mosh that is the the world wide web... so why not join the ranks, hopefully unnoticed.
And so Wall Street...
Or should I say the market? Anything so complex must be a pointless right? Once you discover how certain things work you'll be amazed at the questions that might roll through your head just to be countered by thoughts like, "no way in hell," quickly to be covered up by, "I must not understand." But your first thought was correct and trust me every person has thought this when first learning about certain aspects. Some obviously embraced the, "no way in hell," and quickly went on to become traders or brokers ultimately some becoming what they all desire - rich. And there are those who stupidly embraced the thought even though they didn't understand and those went on to loose lots of money, either ours or their own. But ultimately all the money is spent right? But where does it all go? When stocks crash and people loose money, where does it go? Is someone holding out? Pulling strings? or did the money ever really exist?
I had my first "oh shit" moment when I discovered short sales. Basically, a trader can borrow someone who is going long (the traditional buy and hope guy) stocks and resell them to turn a profit just so long as the stock goes down. That's right, down. Of course shorts have to be available and there's the rub, but any good trader knows which broker to deal with. I'm not a trader so I can only imagine the possibilities. The kicker is that this is even possible. So, to recap, I can borrow your stock at 100, sell them, buy them back when they go to 90 for example and keep the profit. And this is why short sales were suspended last September, because it was obviously going down... but if something is fair and honest why and how could it be suspended for any reason?
And there is much more I won't go into boring detail about, BUT...
I promise there is enough BS surrounding Wall Street and trading to make an honest, hard working guy want go on strike tomorrow just to screw these bastards into the ground. How dare them get away with simply donking around with money in folly ways while not having to actually ever do any real work... Of course they have big brains and they can justify having a big house and nice car to you while you mow their grass, but really, they have no power and no right. If every worker decided, "screw it," and went on strike the system would crash in a matter of weeks. We'd only have to sit back and wait for the to fry under their own heat lamp as the market melted down, credit froze yadda yadda... but a nice concerted effort would totally work. Work freely with the local food markets and authority to keep people alive and healthy and in about two weeks they'd be on seething and sending in military to force us all back to work.
But what if they decided to screw the system? Could we send someone after them? Maybe we could go after them but the sheer cleverness they posses ultimately would win out. They'd manuscript some epic failure, point at data and shrug and then the reserve would lower rates. Next thing you know they'd have us looking to secure our life saving in bonds and the US dollar would be strong. So strong it kills the market because the commodities drop record lows. Now while we're running to bonds they would be taking our bailed out investment in to their funny money and running. Buying gold, silver, oil, sugar, you name it. Then just as the dollar starts to get week they'd throw their hands up again right?
Well, we'll see. Perhaps the meltdown last year was just a big credit bubble that no one saw coming... or maybe it was seen and completely predictable and with good regulations and fast action could have been prevented without completely wrecking our dollar by over printing it just to pump into investment firms who in turn gave bonuses which were used to buy the fruits of our labor, the resources of our land and the last bits of our dignity. Maybe all it took was a little honesty upfront. But what can you expect from a market that lets people short the system. Yes, they've got our best interest in mind.
