alt Hacker NewsNeither George Carlin nor I am saying that the average person cannot invest in companies, nor that they should not be able to (well, I'm not, at least).
We are both saying that the rules and conditions under which you and I invest in companies and the market are substantially different than those in which the ultrawealthy invest in the market, and ours carry both higher risks and more onerous terms. You can argue whatever you want about why that is or whether it should be, but we're not all on a level playing field, and that's relevant especially in an era when all of the answers to "how do I make myself secure against the vicissitudes of fate" involve "investing" in the market.
Nobody is on a level playing field, nor should they be.
> and ours carry both higher risks and more onerous terms
Can you speak to your experience in investing? I’ve invested in both public and private market deals. There’s nothing safer in my mind than low-cost index funds which are as accessible as running water for all Americans. $1 and a Robinhood account or something are all you need. Granted you can get higher returns of course in private markets but to suggest in general that they are both less risky and higher returning sounds inaccurate to me.
I’m not trying to discredit your underlying point, the ultra wealthy do have access to better terms. They have more capital to deploy - it provides similar scaling discounts to other volume-based businesses.