If the doctor et al - the investing public - don’t own the dividend-paying companies, who will? If you say “a broader base of people” I agree. If you say “the state”, I’d urge you to read some history books.
Ownership is an economic concept that is fundamentally misunderstood. It’s a skill you can be good at, and a good owner has a massive positive impact on society. It’s not a golden ticket to sit on your ass and switch off your brain like some others imply.
When you own something, you have to look out for everything that can go wrong with your property and have strategies in place to deal with it. You have to consider every possible use of it and decide on the one that adds the most value. You have to consider the long-term flow of resources needed for various projects and invest either your own or borrow someone else’s. You have to hire good managers and then manage them.
Owning something is a LOT of work if you do it right because you own the entire outcome, no matter what it is or who’s fault it is.
Buy $5 mil in S&P and that's exactly what you can do. Comfortably.
The fact that you can mix work with wealth and earn a higher return is proof of little more than you can mix work with wealth.
If you have wealth that is.
The PE ratio’s in the 500 S&P co’s have been heading ever upward (https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe) indicating some sort of self-reinforcing effect.
Throwing the money at your preferred wall street instrument of choice is the same thing but with half a million layers of abstraction and redirection all of which involve middle men who either take cuts or otherwise get paid for sorting and bundling, matchmaking, providing liquidity, etc, etc.
No. Why would it be?
Those layers of abstraction cut out the risk such that in many cases cash is the riskier instrument.
Because the doctor had to evaluate the investment opportunity and risk what they invested.
>Those layers of abstraction cut out the risk
And that's why you only make pennies on the dollar doing it that way vs the risky way of picking specific things with high growth potential to invest in.
Unless it's the doctor's hobby somebody usually does this on the doctor's behalf in exchange for a %. This is one of the functions of a well oiled financial industry.
If nobody was willing to do this for < expected rate of return then yes, that suggests all the money is earned.
>And that's why you only make pennies on the dollar doing it
Can you guess the average yearly S&P return over the last 30 years?
With a basic income/free housing your comment would be valid though.