Quote:
Originally Posted by fbmfor  There are ways of making money that do not provide value to other people, or at least provide it very, very indirectly. Or at least people executing them do not view them as value providing methods, but only as money making methods. Take for instance trading. Lots of people have trading as a career or as a main activity. Some are successful and some are not, like with any other money making method. But their success doesn't depend on the value they provide to others.
How do these ways of making money contrast with the first two sentences of Steve's post "The essence of successful income generation is value creation. If you want to earn income, you must provide something that matters enough to someone else that they’ll pay you for it."? |
My biases up front: I despise what traders do. I believe that it's little more than a legal form of gambling.
That said, they actually do create value (unfortunately). If I invest my money into, say, a mutual fund I want to get a return on that investment. If a trader earns me money by flipping stocks and whatnot, then they actually are creating value because the value of my mutual fund will increase.
(For the record, I long since cashed out of my mutuals and went to ethical-only investments. My returns plummeted, but I sleep better.)