Took me a minute to get that. It is so obviously something that creates no societal value that... it's a shame people fall for it. Treasure of the Sierra Madre should be required viewing.…nailed it!What was that quote?"People do not seek employment in investment banks, brokerage houses, and mutual fund companies with the same motivations as those who choose to work in fire departments or elementary schools. Whether investors know it or not, they are engaged in an ongoing zero-sum, life-and-death struggle with piranhas, and if rigorous precautions are not taken, the financial services industry will strip investors of their wealth faster than they can say 'Bernie Madoff'".
-- William Bernstein
Actionable information: Use index funds only and keep costs low. Avoid the piranhas.
"The genius of Silicon Valley is that it has persuaded the finest minds of a generation that it is more noble to work on optimizing algorithms to sell advertising than to work for Goldman Sachs".
Agree. Society produces too many investment bankers. And too many Business to Consumer models of marginal (or negative) additional utility, and too few solar panel engineers (if there was such a thing), good nurses or high school maths teachers. Skilled carpenters.
Their ability to mask themselves in my humble opinion, as of today, is best identified in that small, metal round thing…industry, that is currently zooming upward in value.
SBF and "effective altruism" comes to mind.The mantra they spew like holy water from Niagara Falls, is that They are not the big bad banker, or hedge fund manager, or greedy Madoff. They are wonderful, and loving, and care for their clients as though a mother breast feeding a newborn.
…and in waves of open wallets, they descend into the volcanic rapture which will one day wake them to a reality that has played out, throughout the history of humankind, over, and over and over again.
When I began my career, I knew people who had played commodities in the early 1980s (and lost their stakes). And also met people who had made (and lost) fortunes in Australian diamond mines (? it might have been gold - there was a mining bubble there in the early 1970s).
Of course, eventually, they did find diamonds in places they had never thought to look in northern Canada and in Australia. Some people made a lot of money - others got caught in bubbles that bubbled and bust. Diamonds are another commodity where the price is totally artificial.
Statistics: Posted by Valuethinker — Sun Mar 10, 2024 10:23 am — Replies 57 — Views 5620
