@Heavyarms55 The new Guilded Age. We know how the story ends. Try the ribs.

To be fair, it's complicated, and even worse than it is on the surface. The fund managers aren't really managing their own funds (well they partially are), but those are funds that act as money pools for things like insurance plans, pension funds, 401k,s etc. etc. etc. that technically go into people's pay and running businesses. But therein lies the catch. Sinking companies for the quick profit and leaving the rotting husk behind them is part of their tools of the trade, and they sit on so much collected wealth they can take over and control the actions of any company to benefit their short term results and harm the company (and thus all the employees and customers.) And they do. But the public never has a problem with it, because so much of the public is dependent upon them doing that to fund their insurance, pensions, etc. So we're stuck in this loop where the public is fine with them plundering on the high seas, so long as they get their gold doubloon out of it (as long as it's someone else getting plundered.) But it always goes too far, because that's all humanity seems to do. And now the gulf is extreme, and we're returning to almost a caste system where if you're born into it, you're part of it, and if you're not you never will be unless you happen to be extraordinarily gifted. The more you can put into it the more you can get out of it and the more you can stand to take the risks on an almost logarithmic scale, but anyone that can absorb no risk is cut out entirely.

@roadrunner343 Everything about everything about the financial/investment industry is smoke and mirrors, lies, manipulation, deceit, and power as the object of power. I realize the good old "anybody can do it and you can make money on it" and sure there's some amount of truth to that, but let's be clear. The concept of shares, stocks, and bonds was in its origin a simple 1:1 purchase of a percentage of ownership. The idea is basic and straight forward. The warped mutation that is the monstrosity of the "financial services" industry ripe with "financial vehicles" which are all bizarre concoctions and shell games. Once you need endless arrays of information, specialized concepts, terminology, etc. etc. etc. to deal with something that is inherently simplistic, and the people in the middle seem to be getting a lot extra out of it due to being higher on the totem pole, and knowing more tricks. Accounting is a 1:1 thing. Finance is a 1:1 thing. Investment is a 1:1 thing. Now that modern finance is a contrivance of tricks, "vehicles", in the know manipulations, exceptions, exclusions, and maneuverings and shell games, it's not really "investment" as intended anymore, it's a complicated high stakes gambling game always stacked in favor of the house, but occasionally you can play the odds and come out ahead if you know how to count the cards. There's nothing defensible about what it presently is. Franky I'll take my odds at The Mirage before Wall Street. And I'm not into gambling. At least they're honest about what they're doing and it's actually less smoke and mirrors. And if I hit jackpot there I don't feel the need to take a 12 hour bath after to wash myself of the stink.

For clarity, I'm not against the idea of investment in it's original form. But we're about a century away from when it was last its original form, and the entanglement of it into the complicated web of IOUs it currently is was in part by design to tie everything up in it to prevent another 1929. We need a reset from the rigged craps table that is now the world economy and a return to simple, direct finance. It's not as lucrative for big money....but once you're in a system that most of the population can't even understand how or why it works, there's a reason: It doesn't. It runs as long as everyone gives it the benefit of the doubt. And most of it comes from the laughable joke that is the Federal Reserve Note (and it's related currencies worldwide.) Essentially the currency itself is a giant short. Which lead to the shell games of investment of layer upon layer of debt based on money that doesn't exist yet, which when it does is based on currency that doesn't exist yet, and so on and so on. We're living our entire lives on IOUs and it only works as long as most will accept IOUs in trade for other IOUs. Someday someone won't.

Of course it will reset on its own, one way or another......it's inevitable. And it won't be pleasant. Maybe it happens in our lifetimes...maybe not. But it'll happen. I'll short this entire guys fund on that stake