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Comment by jrm4 | Hacker News Reader

This. Today's stock market bears little relation to "a thing where you can buy shares of a company, and if it does well you can get paid by selling it."

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That is simply not true at all. Most stock prices are based upon earning or future potential earnings.

That's what it says in the textbook, but you are woefully misinformed if you believe that this strongly matches reality, especially for individuals and smaller players in this thing.

lol

Ask Zuck if he’s laughing after FB’s profits fell.

And yet there is a legal definition of a Ponzi scheme.

Yes, and all the currently operating network marketing companies, legally, aren't Ponzi schemes. Yet I bet many people would call them a Ponzi scheme.

Lol. I'm a lawyer. If I went around correcting people because they weren't using the legal definition of things, I'd have no time to do anything else.

(I will go ham on you if you try to say a smart contract is a contract :)

and yet every time it is actually prosecuted in court (not settled or plea dealed) the distinction blurs because the difference between something legal and illegal can’t be found

> This. Today's stock market bears little relation to "a thing where you can buy shares of a company, and if it does well you can get paid by selling it."

So speculation? Seems like that is the primary way it works today. Also, dividends represent a major source of market returns. Some searching suggests as much as 30%.

The extremely conspicuous Twitter story currently in everyone’s face provides a very easy to understand counterpoint.

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