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Originally Posted by Brutha  The core question is:
What benefit does society get from the guy who's doing the day trading? |
If that guy makes money, spending power - money re-injected in his local economy.
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Originally Posted by Beingist No. Actually, I was looking for the benefit to society as a whole. Nothing is being produced, and there is no service to the general public. Even if you want to trade apples for oranges, who else benefits from the trade, except for the farmers who do the trading to begin with? |
If someone bought from that trader, it must be that the buyer thought it was worth paying for it - therefore, of value.
The pricing of services is often counter-intuitive because their value can be so different from one person to another. When I moved to Korea I hired an immigration lawyer to deal with my work visa requirements. Objectively they did not perform a very difficult task, just printed out my paperwork, held my hand while I filled it in because red tape makes me anxious, and delivered it at the immigration office. Someone else might consider this mooching off the system. I considered it was a service worth paying $5,000 for.
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Originally Posted by Beingist Well, to use your apples/oranges analogy (which was a good one, btw), if I grew the apples (some of which I traded for oranges, no doubt because my family was tired of eating apples all the time), then society would benefit from the nutrition of my apples. After all, people do need to eat.
But, the actual trade of apples for oranges? Not a benefit to society as a whole, in my view. |
You grow apples. But you're in the States. Are you willing to come and deliver your apples to me halfway across the world? Probably not. But a trader is, and I am willing to pay for it - in oranges, if he wants. The value I am receiving is apples I wouldn't have been able to access had there been no trader.