Economy
In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 9 July 2013 [View all]marybourg
(12,631 posts)"community" appears where everyone can see it, I assumed everyone can reply to it. As a 25- year-retired person who successfully engineered a comfortable retirement out of a working-class background without ever paying a financial professional and never paying high expense ratios for mutual funds, I wanted to counter to what appears to me to be a self-defeating, nearly nihilistic attitude toward the capitalistic system that we all live in.
This is the system we have to make work for us if we are to provide for ourselves and not be a burden to our family or to society as we age, as we all do. Constant trashing of investing and those who invest (even when they do it as much as possible by themselves and don't rely on highly-paid professionals) is classic sour grapes and self-defeating. I've successfully secured my retirement and I can't be hurt by anything hurled at me here.
But I was hoping to help some who've not yet had their consciousness raised (as we used to say in the 60's) that by living a little below their means (yes, by doing without some things their friends have) investing regularly in low cost index funds, not responding to stock market moves, rumors, tips or news, just sticking with a plan over the course of their working lives, they'll be able to give up bitching, complaining, and blaming, and start feeling contented. If that earns me opprobrium here, so be it.