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Simple Question

Mar 16, 2009 at 8:29 PM

Alfred Holzheu

A simple question By alfredholzheu in Member Introductions

I am a small business owner (an upscale Supermarket) in the Santa Ynez Valley (the home of the that incredibly stupid movie "Sideways") and have been reading John’s newsletter "for free, thankyou John" for the past year. Truth and reality are a nice change to the general stupidity of the official business press. But I have a question that no financial guru of any sort has been able to clear up for me. Why is the stock market considered an investment. Bets on the table at the local Chumash Indian Casino can yield an "investment" return, but is it an investment. When I spent $50K on a sushi bar in my business, I was banking on a return that depended on attracting new customers who would by a product for more than its cost to produce, ie. we added value to the fish and rice that we bought. In what way is that part of an investment in a stock that does not at least pay dividends, why is our country so focused on this illusory metric. For the most part, except for the IPO market or expansion fueled by equity, companies can not even benefit by the movement of the stock market. I just don’t get it, from a real perspective.

Alfred Holzheu

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