The Stock Market

[turtledude23]

As far as I know the only benefit the stock market gives to a company is that from the IPO they get a bunch of money no strings attached, but after that they become slaves to their stock holders for the rest of their existence unless if they bought back all the shares. Corporations single minded pursuit of profit regardless of the cost to others and the environment is pretty much a given, but its one thing to pursue profit at your own pace, its another to be expected to produce profit consistently every 3 months. The same goes for lying to the public: when a company isn't on the stock market they can lie less often, but when their sticks can go down at any point during any day the lying needs to be more consistent. In other words the stock market rewards unethical behaviour, watch The Yes Men Fix The World for an excellent example of this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazUh0Ym8rc ). Furthermore whenever the stock market crashes - which is inevitable - it impacts the whole economy. Why should we allow it to continue to exist? It doesn't help average people in any way unless they're one of the minority of people who invest in it and make a profit, but by doing that they're supporting a corporations bad behaviour. It only helps a corporation for a very short time with the IPO, and there are alternatives to raise funds including private investors and having your employees become share holders (a co-op).

[3DMonkey]

It's just money. If you changed the whole system. It's just money.

I invest in companies I like. If they go up or down, I still like them. This way, I'm not caught up in it. Circles of people generate their own little collective bubbles. I couldn't sit in a room of brokers. My little collective's bubble doesn't see the same way.

[Ocean]

i think the stock market creates karma cuz you dump your shares on someone else so you can profit, like on Veronica Mars, Veronica went to tell her teacher to dump his shares as the company he invested was going down, the teacher said then he'd just be giving the problem to someone else. he couldn't do that.

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that's good Monkey, i like that, good way to invest.

[Brittany]

It all seems like a bunch of bollocks to me. The whole concept of money itself is so absurd I can barely wrap my mind around it. We do all this stuff over little pieces of paper we assign imaginary value. The stock market just seems like another way of using a monetary system to maintain power over people who have been trapped in the perpetuated notion that we would all fly off the face of the earth if money ceased to exist. I wonder if people would even be able to fathom life based entirely on a free trade system...Annnd I'm ranting now. I've never gotten into the stock market so I can't say really comment on any of its deeper aspects and still pretend to know what I'm talking about. The whole thing seems like a massive headache.

[3DMonkey]

It all seems like a bunch of bollocks to me. The whole concept of money itself is so absurd I can barely wrap my mind around it. We do all this stuff over little pieces of paper we assign imaginary value. The stock market just seems like another way of using a monetary system to maintain power over people who have been trapped in the perpetuated notion that we would all fly off the face of the earth if money ceased to exist. I wonder if people would even be able to fathom life based entirely on a free trade system...Annnd I'm ranting now. I've never gotten into the stock market so I can't say really comment on any of its deeper aspects and still pretend to know what I'm talking about. The whole thing seems like a massive headache.

thats what hippies were, and then drugs lured in the STS crowd. imo. i dont know

[Brittany]

People seem to see that one failed attempt at giving up money's hold over us as justification to never try it again. I say keep trying until you get it right. I'm currently looking into work exchange programs that operate on a system of barter instead of a system of money. From what little I've researched so far, it seems like a rewarding lifestyle with the opportunity to provide great service.