Do we make our money honestly?

I may get a lot of crap for these thoughts but I can't help but think that we just profit off of each other in a sense. We go to work and earn our wages and some of us may even save some of those wages and I suppose that this is pretty honest but what about the other things we do with our money...such as the stock market and 401K's? Are we really doing anything to earn that money? I get the whole idea of investment in a company allows for said company to grow and in turn will create jobs and so forth, but have we allowed it to go to far? Are we creating job losses by investing in companies who move jobs to other countries and pay people pennies for a days wage in order to up their profit margins to pay their investors. Maybe I am confused but it seems as if we are feeding the beast in some regards. Any thoughts? Oh...and does it bother anyone else that we have resorted to trading each others health and homes to make our money?

in the Temple!

required to gamble with one's retirement savings in order to retire. I've read lot's about 401k fees taking a large bite out of one's retirement savings too. I just do CD laddering saving my money in several short term CDs. Sucks now because with interest rates so low but at least I still have access to my money should there be an emergency. HOpefully rates will rise again encouraging savings. but who knows?

You are loaning your money to the bank with the hope that the bank will pay it back, with interest. The bank then loans that money out to people who want to buy cars, houses, etc. If those people don't pay the bank back, there is a chance that you won't get paid back.

EXCEPT: FDIC insures your CD account so that if the bank doesn't get paid back then the FDIC will.

If you buy a bond, you are doing the same thing almost. You are loaning your money to a company that will promise to pay it back in the future. EXCEPT with a corporate bond there is no FDIC. Depending on the corporation, this might be very risky.

Therefore, to get people to lend them money, corporations have to pay more interest than a bank does.

If you buy stock in a company you are hoping that the value of that company grows and you can sell it to someone else later at a higher price.

This is very risky, thus investors in the stock market expect and even greater return.

There is no riskless investment. If you consider taking risk to be gambling, then there is no investment that is not gambling.

It's quite disappointing that society is organized that way. I'm just picking the safest form of gambling.

I thought gambling was a sin or vice or something, no?

I'm sure that most of the voices we hear in the footage come from hard workers--but when the field of endeavor is so fundamentally toxic, can it be termed "honest" labor?

I think that most of us may need to take a look at what we do for money.

I make cartoons. But I'm sure there are some parents out there who think they rot young minds.

Maybe they do?

Sure is fun tho. :)

Every time someone buys an imported car that person is actually paying someone to move jobs to other countries. Took a while for it to catch up with us. But it finally did.

Now we are fucked.

Don