A World Without Wall Street

Has anyone ever thought of an alternate reality without Wall Street? Like this industry never existed. Or perhaps a financial services industry without the big fat paycheck and prestige, just a regular ass 40k job.

What do you see yourself doing in that world? Where else would you have found a career?

7 Comments
 

A world with out wall street, we would be in the middle ages still. Wall street has premitted wealth accumulation like the world has never seen before. Not just for the mega rich but also for main street as well. Sure there is a huge wealth gap in America and the world for that matter but it would be drasticly worse if the average main street worker had no way of saving for retirement outside of his/her savings account.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 
heisterA world with out wall street, we would be in the middle ages still. Wall street has premitted wealth accumulation like the world has never seen before. Not just for the mega rich but also for main street as well. Sure there is a huge wealth gap in America and the world for that matter but it would be drasticly worse if the average main street worker had no way of saving for retirement outside of his/her savings account.

You are aware that the greatest wealth gains per capita in the history of the United States occurred pre-Wall Street?

 
Best Response
dweezy
heisterA world with out wall street, we would be in the middle ages still. Wall street has premitted wealth accumulation like the world has never seen before. Not just for the mega rich but also for main street as well. Sure there is a huge wealth gap in America and the world for that matter but it would be drasticly worse if the average main street worker had no way of saving for retirement outside of his/her savings account.

You are aware that the greatest wealth gains per capita in the history of the United States occurred pre-Wall Street?

Pre Wall Street? You do know what became Wall Street was a trading center prior to the 1640's right? Wealth gains per capita can not incule land grants given by the government. It is simply not a fair or equal comparison. Its easy to obtain wealth if it is simply granted to you. However Wall Street allows for someone of less means to ammas a considerable (by middle class standards) collection of assets with out having to directly put forth the labor efforts to gain that entire asset base. So if you can point me to examples that show people obtaining great wealth on a community wide basis, outside of land, prior to 1640 I will consider your statement.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 
dweezy
heisterA world with out wall street, we would be in the middle ages still. Wall street has premitted wealth accumulation like the world has never seen before. Not just for the mega rich but also for main street as well. Sure there is a huge wealth gap in America and the world for that matter but it would be drasticly worse if the average main street worker had no way of saving for retirement outside of his/her savings account.

You are aware that the greatest wealth gains per capita in the history of the United States occurred pre-Wall Street?

you mean when we owned and enslaved people for free labor and capital? or when we just planted / dug shit out of the ground?

naaaaiiiice

 

Wall street (or some equivalent) is a byproduct of capitalism. To say there is an alternate reality without Wall Street is to say there is an alternate reality without free markets.

 

On a related note, can you imagine how shitty things would be when trying to buy & sell stocks and other assets without traders and elements of the industry which provide liquidity? It would be like selling a house - imagine taking 2 months and $15k in commissions to sell a 300k stock portfolio.

 

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