If more people actually invested, invested for the long run, there

[WCGreen]

wouldn't such these wild fluctuations caused by professional investors chasing the marginal up and down ticks.

Sure there would be some downturns, but those would be because of the natural ebb and flow of the economic cycle.

Wall Street has turned into a Casino, a Giant slot machine that people pull and pull and pull and continue to lose while the guy behind the scene, the one arming that machine, rakes in the do re me...

[Skink]

1. Most ordinary people with 401ks etc do. It's day trading and hedge funds that now control the marke

[WCGreen]

3. Those Day Traders are the one's I was talking about...

But because of them, more Mutual Fund managers are being forced to make decisions for financial reasons instead of investment reasons.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. We always invested for the long run.

I have to admit to being nervous when the market was crashing and losing value all over the place last year...

But we stayed put, and are OK.

No casinos for us...

It may not be exciting to do it this way, but it sustains our way of living.

I guess too many folks see themselves as experts, as people who can stay ahead of the market fluctuations, and make them work to their benefit.

We're not into it for the excitement.

[Hippo_Tron]

11. My Econ 100 professor told us flat out that you can't beat the markets unless you do it for a living

And even if you do it for a living it's still awfully risky. As a poker player, I can certainly understand the thrill in risky situations. But I don't play with people who are well beyond my skill level because I know that if I do my only way of winning is by luck rather than strategy and winning by luck isn't any fun. People who think they are "experts" are playing poker with people who are much more skilled than they are and in many cases they are playing with their livelihoods.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

13. My husband is a very cautious man...

And we've benefited with expert advice from our stock brokers.

He also has studied the various firms we've invested in.

It's a very serious business for him.

I'd agree with your Econ professor.

[sandnsea]

4. It's always been a casino

They run it up and pull in all the "long term" suckers, they cash out and leave you to take the fall.

Interest, commodities, oil, stocks, currency, real estate, gold. Around and around.

That's why Obama says he'd like to get the country off this balloon economy, but I don't see how he's going to make the 1% give it up.

[WCGreen]

5. I really think a transaction tax on stocks held for less than six months

might be the way to stem some of that margin trading.

Or perhaps require day traders to be set up as a small business and have to pay FICA on there earnings.

In a computer operated exchange, that shouldn't be so hard.

Make Scott Trade, for instance, issue 1099's to traders. Just regular old 1099's that signify earned income, income that would be taxable as eligible for Social Security and Medicare...

Other entrepreneurs pay taxes, why should a day trader be treated any different?

[Art_from_Ark]

7. I invested long-term in some companies

and was exposed to the very dark side of investing. Stock dilution, pump-and-dump schemes, bait-and-switch schemes, dead cat bounces, hanging on to brand-name companies and watching them go to ZERO... Never again.

[sandnsea]

8. I don't think they're the problem

I think people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and George Soros are the problem, and there isn't a thing in the world you're going to do to make them change the way they trade. They know there are bubbles, they count on the bubbles, and they know how to get out before the bubble peaks. You can't have these cycles for a hundred years and not have these people notice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Glass Steegal, re-rgulation

taxes on all trades. This would do quite a bit of good.

[Oregone]

9. All right. First, cut me a million dollar check and Ill invest it

After taking a look at the disparity of wealth in the US, do you honestly think that if The People were investing the pennies they have left over after paying for food and their mortgage, that they would stabilize the market at all? What don't you get about the current state of affairs? Not only do the masses not possess the majority of the wealth, what they possess isn't liquid enough to invest. Most people have enough trouble saving anything from year to year, much less scraping more together to invest

[WCGreen]

15. When I dais more people to invest I thought I was clear that the

people who use the market as a personal slot machine should invest and that a transaction tax for all stocks held less than six months would make people think twice before they bought at the opening bell and then turned around and sold after lunch...

[Art_from_Ark]

17. The problem with that proposal is

if Joe Blow unwittingly buys into a pump-and-dump scheme, and finds out during the 6-month penalty period, then he would be taxed in order to get out of a loser stock.

[WCGreen]

18. Well, all I can say is that people are always making decisions W/O

looking at tax ramifications. Believe me, I prepare taxes for a living and there are all sorts of people who remove money from say an IRA and do not roll it over within the 60 days. They get taxed whether they know about the tax or not.

Perhaps people would be less foolish with their investments if they were smacked with a tax.

I know it's harsh but people need to take more responsibility for their actions. They were willing to buy the sales pitch of the alleged broker because they tough they were going to "beat" the market.

That's all I have to say on that.

[Greyhound]

10. Another problem easily fixed, except

that it hurts the people causing the problem.

Re-implement a small tax on transactions, the total for investors would be negligent but a real burden to the gamblers.

[WCGreen]

16. That's what I proposed. A transaction tax on trades for equities

that are held for less than six months.

[Hannah Bell]

12. it's always been a casino, & there have always been wild ups & downs, & there

have always been professional investors - since the equivalent of stock markets were created.

[WCGreen]

14. The tax would slow it down somewhat...

People are trading on the tick, the second by second movement of a stock or commodity.

[Hannah Bell]

20. sure, it would slow it down. but the reason the safeguards were removed in the first

place was because the capitalist class, or a powerful faction of it, wanted to speed it up -- to make more profits.

& that's what they always have done.

[Kip Humphrey]

19. The Ownership Society, part deux..