Three Myths about Wall Street

I've been reading a lot of editorials and protest signs from Occupy Wall Street about greedy bloodsuckers on Wall Street, and from what I have read, I can see that many people don't have even the smallest idea of what people on Wall Street do. Therefore, I want to confront some of these myths believed by so many.

Myth One: Wall Street produces nothing. Wall Street produces a lot of things. People can't turn ideas into real products without capital. Capital according to the “Free Dictionary by Farlex “ is simply wealth in the form of money or property, used or accumulated in a business by a person, partnership, or corporation. Everyday people wanting better lives invest this financial capital in an idea or an established business to do so.

You can’t get capital for a dream you have unless someone invests it in you. And almost all investments come from places like Wall Street because most people don’t have millionaire uncles to loan them money for a business and if they did, he would get his money from Wall Street.

Myth Two: Wall Street is greedy, and greed is bad. Stealing is bad, not greed. Greed is, if we reprogram our minds to put in a better phrase, wanting to make money so that you can better yours and your children's lives. A woman with principles is narrow minded if you want to throw around bad words, but having principles or being narrow minded are not the same thing even though they may both fit, depending on whether or not you yourself have low moral standards.

The fact is that people who use the word greed usually are envious; unless, the person they are talking about is unethical. And how come no one ever talks about greedy poor people. I have been literally accosted by greedy street beggars who had on nicer clothes and shoes than me.

Myth Three: Wall Street is about speculation and speculation is bad. Oil is at its lowest prices in a long time because of speculators. Demand is booming but speculators were afraid of a recession so they sold off what they had which led to a collapse in prices. The same is true with commodity prices like nickel and copper. Is the President going to call in a Joint Session of Congress to complain?

Speculating is why we have full groceries shelves. We don‘t have gas lines today because unlike President Carter’s administration, the government now lets the market handle supply and demand even in a crisis. The gas lines of Jimmy Carter’s day were completely caused by the government handling the distribution.

Too, the reason why college prices are so high is because of government supplied student loans raising the demand for a limited supply of education spots, spots increasingly filled with people taking useless majors (gender studies) that have no employment potential, yet the government still finances them all equally. With only so many people talented enough to teach this causes higher demand than supply raising tuition prices. I wish the people on Occupied Wall Street listened to the professors who knew what they were talking about, or they might know this.

I will take on three more myths next week including the one that being a Wall Street broker is only about day trading where greedy brokers bang in and bang out of the market for theirs and their rich client’s daily bucks at the poor’s expense, as opposed to what being a broker really is, investing the savings of widows, pension funds, school endowments and the money of the rich and not so rich.

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