Elon Musk just lost $4.6 billion on Tesla and SolarCity

[mamalala]

I can see why some might call certain share holders leaches. A lot of the investment comes from 401k mutual funds etc and I don't have a problem with that.. but the high frequency traders and day traders do exploit the market for their gain. They don't really care about companies they invest in, their only play is to game the market.

Like microsecond trade machines which react on stocks before anyone is even able to see the change.

High frequency traders only exploit the flaws that the system already has. Sure, they basically do a good job at highlighting the flaws, but they didn't create those flaws.

Simple logic: We all live on a finite sized rock floating in the finite milkiway. It is impossible to have constant growth. At some point, the resources are gone. The basic idea that a company is only worth something as long as it can grow is fundamentally flawed. It may be able to grow for some period of time, at the cost of some other growth, but it just can't grow forever. Anyone who "invests" in some comapny, expecting constant growth, thus making the owned shares more and more valuable, is a leech. It just can't be done long term.

Greetings,

Chris

[mamalala]

... most IP is the result of a large team of people ...

Once you get down to reality, you will quickly see that what you call "large team of people" is way smaller than the number of people that use a crapper at the same time.... That is, that allegedly "large team" is actually neglible. Just because someone has the means to pay for a patent does not mean he really had the idea first.

Greetings,

Chris

[mamalala]

You should flip the coin and think of it this way: he has at least 4bn+ to lose.

How much do you have to lose?

After that, you may not think too bad for him.

He doesn't have 4 billion. Its funny to see how some folks get all up in arms when it comes to taxing such stuff, loudly yelling "but he does not have that as cash, so it shouldn't be taxed as cash", only to make a 180° turn and say "but he lost XXX as if it were cash". Greed makes people blind.

Do you know how the french dealt with overly greedy folks? Look up "french revolution". Also look up  "Guillotine". Should give you at least a vague hint as to how much things can be stretched before the breaking point. Whereas "breaking" has quite a boney meaning....

Greetings,

Chris

[Muxr]

I can see why some might call certain share holders leaches. A lot of the investment comes from 401k mutual funds etc and I don't have a problem with that.. but the high frequency traders and day traders do exploit the market for their gain. They don't really care about companies they invest in, their only play is to game the market.

Like microsecond trade machines which react on stocks before anyone is even able to see the change.

High frequency traders only exploit the flaws that the system already has. Sure, they basically do a good job at highlighting the flaws, but they didn't create those flaws.

Simple logic: We all live on a finite sized rock floating in the finite milkiway. It is impossible to have constant growth. At some point, the resources are gone. The basic idea that a company is only worth something as long as it can grow is fundamentally flawed. It may be able to grow for some period of time, at the cost of some other growth, but it just can't grow forever. Anyone who "invests" in some comapny, expecting constant growth, thus making the owned shares more and more valuable, is a leech. It just can't be done long term.

Greetings,

Chris

Yes but seeing and acting on information because you have a fat fiber pipe in the same building as the stock exchange is borderline insider trading. They execute trades on information the rest of the world doesn't get to see until the opportune moment is over.

On the other part of your comment. A profitable company is supposed to grow, even if they don't grow the business the assets (physical or IP) accumulate. Which increases the value. A collapse of a system can cause rapid devaluation of shares, whether it be the entire economy or just the market they operate in. But people who own shares aren't all leaches. Shares are the price of going IPO. Going IPO gives a company a huge influx of starting capital. Even if those shares were transferred to someone else they still represent the ownership, without which the company either wouldn't have had the money to grow or wouldn't have existed. That's all part of the contract of receiving that fat IPO check.

[zapta]

Do you know how the french dealt with overly greedy folks?

So far the greedy here is you, lasting after other people money and threatening to behead them . 

[dannyf]

"Do you know how the french dealt with overly greedy folks? "

By becoming fast a 3rd world country where everyone is equally poor. No wonder they have the world guys like pikkety.

[retrolefty]

How exactly are shareholders like leeches? It is their company! 100% of a company is owned by shareholders.

Nope. Shareholders didn't build the comapny. if the did, they all would be $EO's. But they are not. They are people that pretend to throw money at some company, while usually having no clue what it is about, only lookng at what profit they can make with their shares.

At least over here, most companies are owned by, well, what do you know, the person who actually created that company. Only after all that shares-crap started to gain a foothold things are constantly going in one direction only: down the drain.

Greetings,

Chris

 I see that you are not a fan of capitalism and the liquidity of capital via free markets. Perhaps there is a better working system out there to compare to?  China appears to be having trouble establishing an effective stock market but I'm sure they understand that long term that central control of an economy doesn't have a good track record.

[retrolefty]

I can see why some might call certain share holders leaches. A lot of the investment comes from 401k mutual funds etc and I don't have a problem with that.. but the high frequency traders and day traders do exploit the market for their gain. They don't really care about companies they invest in, their only play is to game the market.

Like microsecond trade machines which react on stocks before anyone is even able to see the change.

High frequency traders only exploit the flaws that the system already has. Sure, they basically do a good job at highlighting the flaws, but they didn't create those flaws.

Simple logic: We all live on a finite sized rock floating in the finite milkiway. It is impossible to have constant growth. At some point, the resources are gone. The basic idea that a company is only worth something as long as it can grow is fundamentally flawed. It may be able to grow for some period of time, at the cost of some other growth, but it just can't grow forever. Anyone who "invests" in some comapny, expecting constant growth, thus making the owned shares more and more valuable, is a leech. It just can't be done long term.

Greetings,

Chris

 Many speculate on stocks for growth opportunity, but many people conservatively buy stocks for the steady cash dividends paid by companies that use growth as only a tool to sustain dividends over time for the owners of the stock.

[Brumby]

All this to-and-fro about share trading....

Please.

Has everyone forgotten WHY a company will list on the stock market?

[mtdoc]

free markets

Free markets?  Ha Ha - that's a good one.  So pre-2008.  I wish we still had free markets.

Regardless of one's political ideology (spare us the left vs right trolling please) - one thing's for certain - wealth inequality is near all time highs. Regardless of who you blame for that, history has shown this will end badly.  Higher taxes, war or revolution - take your pick.

[zapta]

...one thing's for certain - wealth inequality is near all time highs. Regardless of who you blame for that, history has shown this will end badly.  Higher taxes, war or revolution - take your pick.

Yet another catastrophic prediction. Yawn.

[mtdoc]

...one thing's for certain - wealth inequality is near all time highs. Regardless of who you blame for that, history has shown this will end badly.  Higher taxes, war or revolution - take your pick.

Yet another catastrophic prediction. Yawn.

Nice try.

But instead of trolling for conflict perhaps you can offer your ideas of what will happen with current trends in the financial markets and wealth distribution. 

How do you think the situation will resolve itself?  Politics aside, would you like to see current trends continue and do you think it is possible they will continue on their current trajectory for the foreseeable future? 

I'm not interested in personal or political attacks. I am interested in others views of the situation and a conversation about the possibilities 

I have no specific predictions about outcome or timelines but I do try to learn from history.

[zapta]

I'm not interested in personal or political attacks. I am interested in others views of the situation and a conversation about the possibilities 

The pattern I see is along the lines of catashtropes-will-happen-unless-if-my-political-view-point-will-be-adopted. Be it catastrophic global warming, very sharp decline in energy resources or wars and revolutions and this is typically expressed with very high real or fake confidence.

In reality, the future may unfold with thousands of ways and variations, some we can imagine and some we can't. We should be more humble about our ability to predict the future, and also should not focus on negative outcomes.

[mtdoc]

In reality, the future may unfold with thousands of ways and variations, some we can imagine and some we can't.

On this we agree.

We should be more humble about our ability to predict the future, and also should not focus on negative outcomes.

I profess no ability to predict anything other than a repeat of the broad cycles that have occurred for thousands of years of human history.  Those are not specific predictions. I believe in the adage that history does not repeat exactly but it does rhyme. Believing otherwise would be hubris.

My personal politics are likely not what you assume and in any case I have no illusions that politicians have the ability to effect much change at all (except perhaps at the margins) on the cyclical nature of history driven by human nature and biological impertitives.

I do not see outcomes as positive or negative - that judgement is entirely one of perspective and timeline. Any potential near term outcome will be positive for some individual lives and negative for others but that is always true and constantly changing.

From the broad perspective you cannot have a "positive" outcome without a "negative" outcome and visa versa. They're both part of the same thing - it's a cycle. Just like you can't have a "positve" part of a sine wave without the "negative" part of a sine wave.

Any speculation I make is more about at what point along that wave I see us to be currently -  based on current and historical observations.  I do however think it is naive and polyanna-ish to believe that the we'll forever be on the upslope.






.

[dannyf]

'Shareholders didn't build the comapny.'

Yeah. Governments build the company. Welfare recipients build the company. Lazy bumbs sitting on the asses watching TV build the company.......

[Seekonk]

On a related note, when things took a tumble I started looking at beaten down energy stocks.  SunEdison SUNE flashed on the screen when I was exercising and I looked it up later.   One parameter I notices was % Institutional investors.  Normally institutions range from 30 to 70% compared to us tourist investors.    SUNE had 114.18%.  And they wonder why we think the market is rigged!

[Mechanical Menace]

Governments build the company. Welfare recipients build the company. Lazy bumbs sitting on the asses watching TV build the company.......

Are you saying everybody who has to resort to some sort of welfare/benefits are lazy bums? I apologise if you aren't but having been in that situation for a few years (some due to illness, some due to employers not wanting to take me on after I got well, and at least 1 year while holding down a full time job) I can assure you living on free handouts was never a desire and trying to get out of it meant I had no time to sit on my arse watching TV and the same is true of the vast majority. I have never had to work as hard as I did trying to get a job while unemployed.

[zapta]

Governments build the company. Welfare recipients build the company. Lazy bumbs sitting on the asses watching TV build the company.......

Are you saying everybody who has to resort to some sort of welfare/benefits are lazy bums?

Where did you see 'everybody' in dannyf's post?

[Mechanical Menace]

Governments build the company. Welfare recipients build the company. Lazy bumbs sitting on the asses watching TV build the company.......

Are you saying everybody who has to resort to some sort of welfare/benefits are lazy bums?

Where did you see 'everybody' in dannyf's post?

It was a question, not an accusation. Hence the punctuation and why I added:

I apologise if you aren't

:at the beginning of the following sentence. I'm sure you either stopped reading there or didn't get around to reading it until after you posted, otherwise you would have included it in your quote

[zapta]

Governments build the company. Welfare recipients build the company. Lazy bumbs sitting on the asses watching TV build the company.......

Are you saying everybody who has to resort to some sort of welfare/benefits are lazy bums?

Where did you see 'everybody' in dannyf's post?

It was a question, not an accusation. Hence the punctuation and why I added:

Yes, it was a question, but not about the danny's quote you posted but a distorted version of it.

:at the beginning of the following sentence. I'm sure you either stopped reading there or didn't get around to reading it until after you posted, otherwise you would have included it in your quote

Your post comes as a dishonest attempt to pull a straw-man. I apologize if this is not the case.  ;-)

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

[Mechanical Menace]

Yes, it was a question, but not about the danny's quote you posted but a distorted version of it.

Nope, my question was directly regarding dannyf's post and meant to seek some clarification to avoid distorting it.

Your post comes as a dishonest attempt to pull a straw-man. I apologize if this is not the case.  ;-)

I thought, actually no, I did make it very clear if that's not what he meant the rest of that post didn't apply to him, that's why I assumed you didn't read past the first sentence as there is no way you could have thought I was doing what you claimed if you had. If I was trying to build a strawman you wouldn't have to have done what appeared to be cherry picking to build a strawman of your own. I apologise if that wasn't your intention

[zapta]

I apologise if that wasn't your intention

Apology accepted. ;-)

[dannyf]

SUNE had 114.18%.  And they wonder why we think the market is rigged!

Not unusual as they may report shorts and borrowed securities.

[xarragon]

Personally I think that the biggest threat to society is in respect to financial institutions is that they no longer perform their necessary core function; directing funds towards productive investments. Wise investment is hard and involves risk. Much easier to act as a monetary multiplier for the government, collecting interest and fees as more and more people are forced into the stock market to stave off inflation on their pensions and savings. And every penny pushed into this market furthers the amounts that can be skimmed off using HFT. Given this, why would anyone finance an entreprenur?

[dannyf]

directing funds towards productive investments.

More precisely, making money directing funds.

Banks are in the business of intermediating: getting buyers and sellers of risks together. Today's banks do a lot of that as well. For example, they originate loans to consumers and sell those loans to investors. In that process, consumers get inexpensive loans (than otherwise possible) and investors get paid for taking risks.

What happens in debt-driven societies, unfortunately for the banks, is that lots of consumers overestimated their ability to pay and see a larger and larger chunk of their income going to the banks (then going to the investors). Being stupid, those consumers resent the banks for (having made a loan to them and) insisting on getting paid, on behalf of the investors.

I think you will find a significant deterioration of standards of living in most western countries (Germany and Japan may be the exceptions) if the banking industry is as severely regulated as Ms. Warren had wanted.

To me, killing the banks is one of those examples where its advocates are too stupid to know that they are killing themselves as well.