rationalskepticism.org

jamest wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Financially no different than I was a week ago, a month ago, a year ago.

"Investing" is necessarily gambling, and sometimes you'll lose.

Does this mean that you have no money at all?

No, of course it doesn't mean that.

jamest wrote:Because anyone with money invests it somewhere.

Untrue.

jamest wrote: Even when you hide your money under the mattress, you have it invested in the rate of inflation, which is generally detrimental to one's finances.

I don't have a choice in the matter; 0% interest for foreigners.

jamest wrote:Of course, there are plenty of people who live week-by-week and have no savings, but if you have any form of savings (even in the bank), rest assured that they're currently at risk.

They're not currently at any greater risk than they were last year or any year before that, and that risk is nearly zero. Comparative to the risk you're taking with your money, it's negligible.

The value of the money I had last week is the same as the value of the money I have this week. Now, something may go awry with the economy and the value of currency might change making the money I have possess less value, but I haven't just lost a chunk of value overnight because the dice landed wrong.

This is fundamentally what you've been doing: gambling. When you gamble, you can win big - that's presumably why you did it. But you can also lose. If there was no risk of losing, then there'd be no opportunity to gain - that's the hook for greed. Now you might argue that you can work out the risk, predict the market, make sound investments... and I won't dispute that's true, but I will dispute that anyone can know the future - all models are based on predictable quotients, not ones that cannot be predicted, and it's those that can find you in a dark alley, beat you up and take your handbag.