cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5292091

  • hypercracker
    ·
    4 months ago

    The day trading phenomenon is just so sad. My mom has a few friends whose sons fell for the meme and just sit at home all day making these bets. It always ends up with them losing all their "progress" and, in a very real sense, wasting huge tracts of their lives staring at random numbers being generated. Nothing built, nothing gained, nothing grown. All that remains is regret. That existence is undeniably cushy but psychologically hellish. Down to the countryside with them.

    • Greenleaf [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      This is why for years now, I push back so hard on people here who are like “hey why can’t I use the power of Marxism to make money picking stocks?”. Because you can’t, first of all. But also because this stuff is really easy to be a gateway into getting hooked on just staring at red and green numbers all day while losing everything you put in.

      • Chronicon [they/them]
        ·
        4 months ago

        while losing everything you put in.

        Or more than you put in!

        but in all seriousness yeah its just a gambling addiction by another name in so many cases, and even if its not its playing with fire

    • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      OTOH, it's not like the vast majority of "real" jobs are productive in a real sense either. It feels like so much of the economy is propped up by bazinga AI tech bullshit, and everything else is service jobs or online store warehouse work for $12/hour and no career prospects.

      Add on that our system is designed to have a constant pool of millions of people in a reserve army of labor... what are people supposed to do? Starting a business is not a guarantee of anything. Most fail. Work sucks. There's a joke of a welfare system.

      Getting work is harder than ever since we are competing worldwide and I'm sorry, but not everyone has a job that fits them. Some people just aren't skilled enough to work in a modern company.

      For a mediocre person without special talents or lots of capital day trading doesn't sound that bad. This system is designed to fail the average person. No wonder the average person takes up socially-acceptable forms of gambling to get by.

  • ObamaSama [he/him]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I woke up to half a dozen “sky is falling” RH notifications, saw my portfolio down 10%, shrugged, and went on with my day. I imagine it would be pretty stressful if I actually had money or, god forbid, open call options. Hooray for not having any real stake in the capital market, let it all burn 🔥

    Kinda wild how many Americans’ retirement plans and long term financial stability are completely dependent on the whims of the market tho, genuinely disgusting how siding with the capitalists is presented as the only option if you want to be allowed to retire. Like yeah dude let me just give you my money and tie my future to the well being of the market with the promise that maybe I can get a tiny drop of that stolen surplus in the future. If the market isn’t crashing while I’m trying to retire of course. Glad an entire generation doesn’t have a brutal case of Stockholm syndrome because of it

    grillman porky-happy

    • BobDole [none/use name]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I pretend that my employer mandated 401k just doesn’t exist. I can’t touch it for like 30 years, and I don’t anticipate there being anything in it anyway, so I’m just party-sicko stonks-down

  • RION [she/her]
    ·
    4 months ago

    Idk I learned on TikTok you just buy something and then sell it off when it goes higher. Seems pretty straightforward??

  • Monk3brain3 [any, he/him]
    ·
    4 months ago

    If this is the inevitable AI bubble popping it happened pretty fast. Also I'm very pro stock market crashes lol

    • knightly [none/use any]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Nah, they haven't even started panicing about AI yet. Expect Nvidia stock to drop by another 50% when that happens.

        • knightly [none/use any]
          ·
          4 months ago

          I'm looking forward to it. Sure, it'll hurt my employers' stock price too but that's all fake anyway.

      • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        4 months ago

        I don't get the appeal of modern slots. These 18-reel monstrosities that all look like shitty mobile games except they cost $20 per play and you have no idea what's going on.

        At least the older machines had a lever and some physical movement to take your money.