[ipsa]

The US economy (to which RenTech contributes with profits made on foreign markets) is a national security interest. Working to be very rich and then donating a large chunk of money to promote science - and maths education, also advances technological knowledge. Those depricated CRUD apps I wrote a few years back served neither.

We'd all like our opponent Poker players to play with their cards open, but if they did, they'd never win. Have to accept that you don't get to see the cards of winning players (which includes military technology until declassified).

I find this "Financial trading does not do any good for society" to be rather simplistic, romantic, and envious. The carpenter who turns wood into a chair is said to be producing value, but the investor who turned uncertainty into a profitable hardwood trade is not.

[Barrin92]

trading is largely a zero sum game. Companies like rentech earn money through speculation. If a craftsman makes a chair you have a char in the economy. If renetch extracts a few billion by betting on the stock market someone else has lost a few billion. The only hypothetical benefit is some liquidity but that is pretty meaningless in today's economy and there's even some evidence that high-frequency trading has negative net effects on volatility.

So no this has nothing to do with envy or romanticism. It's just a bad idea to have people with PhDs who could be changing the world play zero-sum gambling games on the stock market. These guys could be reinventing physics or bring us to mars. That's what makes people criticize these activities.

And as far as charity is concerned. Yes, Simon has done a lot of good. However, the other famous rentech guy is Robert mercer, and he is in the business of funding climate denialism. So whether you get a good philanthropist or a bad one is pure luck and has nothing to with the discussion on financial speculation.

[strangedynamics]

Pretty sure the zero sum game trope is overplayed/inaccurate.