[thekyle]

There is a relevant quote apparently from the 1920s.

"Taxi drivers told you what to buy. The shoeshine boy could give you a summary of the day's financial news as he worked with rag and polish. An old beggar who regularly patrolled the street in front of my office now gave me tips and, I suppose, spent the money I and others gave him in the market. My cook had a brokerage account and followed the ticker closely. Her paper profits were quickly blown away in the gale of 1929."

https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv...

[jbay808]

But these days we do expect every cook and taxi driver to be in the market, because dollars in a savings account are getting returns below inflation.

[leppr]

That's the real tragedy of this uncontrolled fiat money printing. Any way you cut it, the poorer one is, the lower the % of assets to cash one owns (all the way to 0). Small bouts of token helicopter money don't fix this. Bitcoin doesn't fix this.

[diegocerdan]

Agents are forced to play to avoid getting robbed by inflation thus wealth is transfered to owners from no-owners.

Luckly for the working class, nowadays everybody can invest with a cheap smartphone and their little capital thus there is nobody to rob from and the system collapses.

[esja]

The original "shoeshine boy" story featured Joe Kennedy (as the speculator), father of JFK.