18 February

Bill Gates has made more money in the quarter of a century since he retired, than he did in the quarter century beforehand when he was creating and running Microsoft. He’s done that by ‘investing’. Investing is the modern gold rush, where people flocked to the countryside to try to get rich quick, finding gold. You can invest to build things, but modern investment is often smoke and mirrors, based only on ‘returns’. Like real estate, where decades now of heavy investment in housing hasn’t led to more or better housing. It’s just led to more expensive housing, the houses have been used as casino chips. Much modern investment is ‘speculative’, which is another word for gambling. Some people get very rich and very fast, attracting the gullible. Like any gold rush. Ultimately the whole thing collapses, because it’s not based on anything in reality except returns. Nobody is building anything. Even basic compound interest is unsustainable exponential growth. Doesn’t it ever strike others as strange that when you invest you basically do nothing, just sit there and gather in the returns?