I don't know what to do with my life. My local organizing is in limbo and I'm not sure I want to keep doing it for several reasons. I don't have a job, lost mine when my campaign work officially ended on 12/1. I used to write code for a living but really don't want to go back into it. It's not what I want to do for a living. Also....
Capitalism is dumb. Really really stupid. I hate how there are so many people busting their butts working in Amazon warehouses or meat packing plants, or those kids mining rare metals in Africa, making scraps and actually making all of these modern Capitalist treats possible. And then there's people who are clicking a few buttons on a stock broker app and pulling in thousands of dollars just like that!
Actually working for an honest wage feels like a scam at this point. I get to be pushed around, mentally distressed (hooray Autism) and eventually stressed out to the point of burning out for whatever wage I "agree" to take (aka whatever "the market" says I'm worth). OR I can turn the trading I'm doing into a "system" and hone it to a point where I can pull in $300-500 per day making trades on the market.
I'm not even talking about a fancy trading strategy with a bunch of indicators or other nonsense. I'm just scalping SPY, buying Call or Put options at a certain point and selling them when they go up in price by 20 cents. 25 contracts x .20 profit / share / contract = $500 - $25 in broker fees = $475. In theory I could run this every day and be in and out of my trade within minutes. The full strategy has risk management rules and then the "hard part" is picking the right entry point for each trade.
I'll be running a back test on this simple plan but I know from actually doing it on a smaller scale that it works. It's so dumb how I can make (and lose) a month's rent on a single trade.
It's disgusting. On one hand I am glad I have this "gift" of hyper-focus so that I can dig into topics like day trading and figure it out. OTOH there's a lot of jealousy over people who I see out and about as "normal" and knowing I'm not going to be them. Part of me wishes I could just deal with a 9-5 job like most people and maybe empty my mind of Politics. I'd be less informed but maybe happier?
The other thing that bothers me is that Capitalism is pushing me towards this route. I'd rather be spending my time learning how to make music, mixing with the gear I have, reading some of these theory and history books that are piling up, or doing something actually good for society. However I need money to survive and after going through plenty of really bad programming jobs I guess I'd rather try to make money on my own. So here I am, becoming the financial equivalent of a river leech, sucking some blood from my host each day, and those hosts being parasites themselves, those stock prices rising from stealing the labor value of everyone possible, charging as much as possible, screwing over everyone as much as they can get away with.
What are you talking about? I don't know what else to do.
I'm not going to work at Walmart just because it's an "honorable" or "honest" way to make money. That's nonsense that Capitalists propagandize us with. There's NO ethical exchange under our system. Either someone else is getting exploited or I am being exploited or both are happening at the same time.
Of course! Why don't you? Do you really want to spend most of your life in a dreary office, stuck in traffic, or in a warehouse moving boxes around? Or staring at a computer screen all day to write some shit code that no one actually uses?
I don't care if society thinks I'm lazy... I just want to enjoy this time I have and if I can figure out how to cheat my way out of the rat race I'm going to take it.
Bro are you actually trying to argue there's no ethical difference between being exploited and being the exploiter? Like come on, I can't fucking stop you from doing what you plan on doing and sure, in all honesty I can't say I wouldn't do the same, but I'd at least feel that tiny bit of shame to not post about it and try to argue capitalism has somehow forced you into becoming a day trader and that you are just another sad victim of late stage capitalism. Fuck off
What exactly would I need to with my life to make you happy?
You could start by no longer making posts to try to justify your life choices. Besides that I don't really care.
A job isn't just a place where you exchange your labor for money. It's a chance to familiarize/connect yourself with the world, to extend yourself socially, maybe peek under the hood of the economy and learn some of its inner workings (this is my #1 motivating factor), and radicalize/organize people in the workplace. If you're not super into the current organizing you're doing, day trading is not going to give you any openings for organizing. If you don't know what to do with your life, and you do the minimum to stay afloat, you run the risk of becoming a guy who does 5 hours of day trading a week to keep himself alive, and nothing else.
Also, 120 million people in this country (and probably a constant 40% of the population in most core countries) put up with a shitty job or a bullshit job. Saying "I don't want a job where I get pushed around, but I also don't want to do the high-salaried job I'm trained to do, I'm just going to make a living with this financial investment that objectively does nothing useful" is being picky to a level that most people lack even the opportunity for. My ambition is to work (and get exploited) for 10 more years, to the point where I can own a house outright and share it with comrades, and never really have to work after that. If you wanted to cut yourself off from capitalism almost completely and live in communal luxury on a land project, where you put in 3 days of farm work per month, there are a bunch of places where you could do that too. I've lived on one myself, and the only reason why I didn't stay there permanently is because of my personal mission to organize in urban areas.
That's a nice way to put it. I'm glad you're able to find a silver lining. It's not the same for me.
I've had a string of really shitty development job experiences, so I'm done looking for those kinds of jobs. I think I'd rather do something like get into Accounting and go for a CPA instead of dealing with code again. I just never quite "got it". I worked really hard to learn whatever was thrown at me, but I always was given tasks that didn't match my skills or what was listed in the job posting, and of course I was just expected to "know" things like writing Workday reports after watching some dry video tutorials. It drove me mad and I didn't realize at the time that my Autism was causing me to come off as "weird" to others, plus the learning challenges making for a miserable experience. I'm not cut out for a field where the syntax changes every few months and I'm constantly having to re-learn things just to stay afloat.
But with trading, I have the chance to learn at my own pace, see real results as I apply what I learned to real money trading, and I get to focus on one thing rather than constantly have to switch. It works for ME. Unlike coding where I was constantly stressed out, badly depressed, dreaming of doing bad things, I am feeling good about something for once! I like doing something that isn't banging my head over an error message that gets resolved to just turn into another error message and being pressured to do more and more because I'm assigned a million points in JIRA.
Maybe this isn't for everyone, but I'm not a fan of pigeon-holing leftism into a tiny little demographic, I'm not going to let myself be molded into what other people think I should be, and I'm not a fan of the left constantly being broke. It would be really nice for our movement to have a new Engels to help fund it! If this really works I want to fund propaganda, cover printing costs, pay for designs, pay for mailing, etc.
Also I'm not just planning on trading and doing nothing with my life. I want the money to survive, and then to have some freedom to figure out what I really want to do. Maybe I go for some financial certs/training and go into Quantitative Analysis? Maybe I go into Accounting and try for a CPA? Maybe I become a financial advisor? Maybe I do none of these things, I put out an album or two, and people actually like my music? Who knows?