Reading through lots of financial rubric in search of an ethical/eco Child Trust Fund, I am struck firstly by how the fund managers ensure that they make a profit whether or not the investment does, taking both an initial charge and an annual charge; and secondly by the extent to which a huge proportion of the financial industry is a house of cards on foundations of sand.
The complex instruments which the industry has created have no basis in existence — they are so many stages removed from anything tangible or truly important to humanity that they might as well be vacuum. The whole thing revolves around finding ever more inventive ways to re-package and re-sell money itself, with everyone taking a percentage at every opportunity. But money itself, divorced from the goods for which it might be exchanged, is ultimately worthless. Unfortunately, the people who usually find this out the hard way are the people at the bottom, the small investors, the impoverished pensioners etc. The system is designed to move wealth from poor to rich, as if by gravity.
So I somewhat despair at having to put a CTF into one of these dodgy investment vehicles in the first place… but since we have no choice about that part, it’s all the more important to choose one which does have a connection to the real world, so that if/when the markets collapse, perhaps it won’t be the end of the world.
2 replies on “Trading Nothing”
man, that article sounds prophetic, considering it was written in March.
BTW, I do like your page design — should perhaps familiariye myself with
CSS and the like.
I just came across your page when looking for decent terminal fonts
Greetings from Germany, Martin
Considering it was written in March 2005… 🙂
At that point I’d drilled but a few inches into the top of the iceberg, and that was enough to put me off investing. I didn’t know much then about the fundamentals of the economy. I had a vague disquiet about the monetary system, but I hadn’t grasped how the use of interest-bearing fiat currency, and the fractional reserve banking system which builds the whole economy out of debt rather than assets, ensures that there can never be enough to go around. Saying it’s built on sand was too kind, at least sand is a tangible asset! Bankruptcy and economic collapse are inevitable under this crazy system. The sooner we throw it away (ideally before it destroys the planet), the better.
Thanks for your comment 😀