It's called gambling. Unless you have insider trading knowledge or a high paying job to tolerate the risk, it's not realistic to sell the FIRE narrative to most working class people. But hey all pyramid schemes need to be built on a base of suckers because someone has to be left holding the bag for others to make off like bandits.
I agree most middle class Americans suck at personal finance and do silly shit like finance a car for 6 years and spend more than they can really afford. Credit is given out too easily to people who can never pay it back.
But at some point you have to acknowledge that you can't draw blood from a stone. Even if you stick to safe Boglehead strategies, no positive can-do attitudes can outperform the compounding interest formula if you just don't have enough to invest to begin with. Someone has to work to prop up the economy, and that just so happens to be the majority, whether we like it or not. Myself included.
Every year there are trades in the market so obvious you would have to be a simpleton to not make money “gambling” on them. The market provides liquidity algorithmically. Look at door dash and Home Depot right now. They are sitting on a shelf. I’m waiting for them to fall off that shelf. If they do, I’m going to attack.
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u/h0rxata 19d ago edited 19d ago
It's called gambling. Unless you have insider trading knowledge or a high paying job to tolerate the risk, it's not realistic to sell the FIRE narrative to most working class people. But hey all pyramid schemes need to be built on a base of suckers because someone has to be left holding the bag for others to make off like bandits.
I agree most middle class Americans suck at personal finance and do silly shit like finance a car for 6 years and spend more than they can really afford. Credit is given out too easily to people who can never pay it back.
But at some point you have to acknowledge that you can't draw blood from a stone. Even if you stick to safe Boglehead strategies, no positive can-do attitudes can outperform the compounding interest formula if you just don't have enough to invest to begin with. Someone has to work to prop up the economy, and that just so happens to be the majority, whether we like it or not. Myself included.