The Stock Market is Basic Income Stupid
I live in Canada and the idea of a basic income is all the rage. We are already a quasi-socialist state, and I live in the highest taxes of them all, Quebec. Now you don’t need to be a Millennial to know that if you haven’t invested in stocks in 2020 and 2021 you either don’t have very good financial literacy or don’t have any financial capital. Either way, it’s not too late.
With the U.S. central bank printing money, stimulus, the CERB (CRB) in Canada and low interest rates, the stock market has been our basic income. You don’t need a strong sense of FOMO to understand this, it’s really basic economics and you don’t have to be rich to have money in the stock market anymore.
There’s zero fee trading apps, there’s OTC stocks less than a penny, there’s momentum stock sector rotations nearly every week.
A Guaranteed livable income makes sense by the Green Party of Canada. Millennial values are very different from the Baby Boomers. Capitalism needs to grow up with the times. Basic income will evolve both in policy and the ability of artificial intelligence to implement it. The consumer driven economy needs to evolve. Ideas of equality need to be baked in.
However for 2020 and 2021, with vaccine roll-outs, decline in hospitalizations and the boom of consumer economies, the stock market has been a tremendous opportunity and millions of people in the world have moved their cash savings to equities for good reason. The stock market pumped by the Fed is the ultimate basic income opportunity.
I know more than a few young people who have flipped $5,000 into $50,000 or more. Then they become real investors. It wasn’t because they were working hard during the pandemic. In natural selection it’s not the most intelligent that pass on their genes, it’s the humans who are the most adaptable. More volume and liquidity has entered the market between March, 2020 and March, 2021 than anytime in history.
The idea that the stock market democratizes access to wealth is absurd, but with low interest rates, corporate earnings have actually been better than expected. The stock market has been inflated by fiscal policy and a lot of people who in ordinary times haven’t had access to the stock market, now do.
If that’s not a form of basic income, I don’t know what is? Most young people don’t even have access to the stock market. But in 2021 something shocking is happening, more are joining it.
People are spending their stimulus checks on the stock market, it’s not gambling, it’s making the best of a terrible year. People are entrepreneurs by nature, by spirit, just as humans try to do good to their own ability and relative to their own circumstances.
The problem? We weren’t trained to be risk-adverse, to keep our head down and to plod along as consumers in a Capitalism that has been failing young people. For some lucky few who have been willing to be gamified by the new trading apps, the stock market has been their basic income.
Keep it simple stupid, the stock market is there for us all. We can all do something there if we have a bit of extra time at home, have a few hundred dollars sitting somewhere and have the will to manifest our own destiny. Fuck you if you haven’t been able to do this, it’s your own goddamn fault.
It’s so basic in your financial literacy, that it puts all your hard work to shame. This isn’t the time for regret or fear, it’s the time to hug trees. The money trees the Fed gifted us with $7 Trillion in stimulus.
If this article resonated with you, share this with a family member of friend who is scared to invest, even a penny. There’s a lot of ignorance about what investing means in a bull-market.