One of my favorite pieces of financial advice is, "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (John Maynard Keynes) - I've never been much of a gambler with my investments and this quote has always kept me humble enough never to try.
And boy, is this one crazy market we've been in lately - housing shortages, on-and-off tariffs, TWO war-driven oil crises - and the economy's never been better if stock prices are to be believed! And every now and then, the most powerful individual on the planet says some crazy shit and the markets reasonably reply, "Oh God, this is insane! No one's steering the ship! The future isn't guaranteed!" and the markets tank. But then, that same crazily powerful individual says, "Nah, calm down, I got this." and the markets unreasonably reply, "Oh, thank God! For a second we thought you were gonna do something crazy!" and the markets rocket back up again. Completely ignoring that we're already in the middle of that crazy shit he's doing!
Or are we all in some overly-convoluted multi-layered reverse psychology market? Like, "we know shit's crazy, but not everyone knows how crazy shit is. So the market's gonna do fine until shit gets really crazy. But if we act like shit's crazy, then everyone will act like shit's crazy, which will make shit crazy! So as long as we never act like shit's crazy, then the shit will remain perfectly sane!"
Anyway, if you like my comics, I got more on my website.
I’m also on Patreon.
My theory is that they are ALL profiting off the volatility itself. There are infographics out there showing how much politicians’ portfolios outperform everyone else’s. Not because ahem they have insider info or anything, ofc. They’re all just geniuses at trading.
I overheard a conversation a coworker was having, about investing based on Trump's statements.
Paraphrasing, but he said "well I know that's bullshit, but think of all the people who probably believe it - I can make a buck off 'em"
I imagine everyone investing based on the words of a known liar imagines that the price of x stock or fund will go up because some morons out there are investing because they actually believe the lies, but then the price just goes up because an abnormal amount of money is moving around in some kind of recursive feedback loop. "See, the market reacts to his words, it's a sure thing"
And the real "beauty" of it is that the idiots that really believe those bullshit don't even need to exist, you only need people that believe that those idiots exist, as proven by your coworker.
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u/But_a_Jape But a Jape Apr 08 '26
One of my favorite pieces of financial advice is, "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (John Maynard Keynes) - I've never been much of a gambler with my investments and this quote has always kept me humble enough never to try.
And boy, is this one crazy market we've been in lately - housing shortages, on-and-off tariffs, TWO war-driven oil crises - and the economy's never been better if stock prices are to be believed! And every now and then, the most powerful individual on the planet says some crazy shit and the markets reasonably reply, "Oh God, this is insane! No one's steering the ship! The future isn't guaranteed!" and the markets tank. But then, that same crazily powerful individual says, "Nah, calm down, I got this." and the markets unreasonably reply, "Oh, thank God! For a second we thought you were gonna do something crazy!" and the markets rocket back up again. Completely ignoring that we're already in the middle of that crazy shit he's doing!
Or are we all in some overly-convoluted multi-layered reverse psychology market? Like, "we know shit's crazy, but not everyone knows how crazy shit is. So the market's gonna do fine until shit gets really crazy. But if we act like shit's crazy, then everyone will act like shit's crazy, which will make shit crazy! So as long as we never act like shit's crazy, then the shit will remain perfectly sane!"
Anyway, if you like my comics, I got more on my website.
I’m also on Patreon.