If we model the stock market as a random walk/Weiner process and I got the math right, I think you're almost certainly going to make money (if you stop when you reach a given profit threshold), but you will have arbitrarily large drawdowns. This is similar in terms of the risk/return profile to the martingale betting system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)
> You entirely missed my point and reduced it down to simple, naive, economics again. How depressing.
Of course it's about economics as it deals with policy and impacts on people. Simple arguments are better.
Not using economics is a cop-out from using rigorous quantitative analysis. It's interesting that on say climate change HN will be all like we should follow the science, yet economics is the science relevant to our discussion.
> There's far more to life, and to a country, than GDP.
True, so what? More money is still better. GDP per capita is a good measure of peoples' living standards.
An interesting read about "The Economics of Happiness" is https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke201... by Ben S. Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve (the part starting from "As you might guess, when thinking about the sources of psychological well-being" is most relevant).
> As for ordinary people "owning" companies, that's either a naive or disingenuous argument.
The stats don't back your stance. "Compare that to the middle class, which has a median value of a mere $14,000 a household."
Also, bond yields (and bank interest) go up when stock yields go up and (I don't know if CNN counted this or not) people invest in retirement funds which invest in stock. And insurance companies also invest their customers' money.
"A surprising fact revealed in the report is that retail investors have invested $9.8 trillion in the U.S. equities, or 38 percent of the total $25.8 trillion corporate equity holdings. Additionally, $812 billion hedge fund assets belong to US retail investors. To put in context hedge funds have total assets under management of approximately $2 trillion. This would mean that approximately 40% of hedge fund assets come from retail investors in the US, the remainder comes from foreign investors and institutions."
> They're a tiny percentage. It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery has almost entirely been captured by rich people and ordinary people haven't seen an effective wage increase in a decade.
Interestingly, you said "The stats don't back your stance." while not using any stats yourself and only using weasel words like "It is widely acknowledged the benefits of economic recovery".
> That rich people benefit from the laws and protections of the U.S., without having to deal with the corruption and laws of India. But they can then import cheap workers to displace the very people who paid for those protections to even exist in the first place?
If the tax system is so broken that the poorer are paying for the richer's protection, then fix the tax system so that the rich person pays the "correct/fair" amount. For example, remove most of the deductions and other rules and replace it with a simple flat tax.
Anyways, why are you saying "rich people"? Ordinary people own these companies and purchase from these companies. They benefit.
