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> Vanguard offers Gold ETFs. Now they would say something ike 'oh that's because gold is used as an actual product ie has a purpose'. But most people accept that gold is also speculative and is the way it is simply because it's been that way for such a long time vs. it's inherent value or purpose.

Bogle was kind of a gold bug. It's unsatisfying and inconsistent and I agree you could make a similar argument for excluding gold if it wasn't already kind of grandfathered in.

> Stock investing is by and large gambling and whatever income the stock owns in no way really flows measuably to the person who owns stock in the company but seems to drive some type of accepted value going forward.

No, stock investing and gambling are absolutely incomparable. Income clearly and directly flows to owners; it's not obscure.

> that gold is also speculative

gold has stayed as a value of store that is tradeable, longer than any civilization has existed.

USD or Stocks or Bonds for that matter any other currency is 1000x more speculative than gold

Gold is also a “commodity” which vanguard stated has inflation protection properties

If Satoshi Nakamoto’s Dormant BTC wallet wakes up tomorrow it’ll burn down the whole market…

Investing in a company is not the same as gambling. It looks like gambling, because like gambling it carries risk, and the stock market is so liquid that the fact that you're investing in a business is abstracted away. But it is fundamentally different from gambling, because you are providing capital for activities you expect to be productive.

Imagine you know a skilled chef, whose new restaurant is losing money, but you believe he can turn it around and start being profitable if he is able to keep operating for another few months. You buy 10% of his business for $100k, so that he can keep paying rent and wages. Your thesis is correct and his restaurant becomes popular and profitable, and you share in the profits. New value is created (a thriving business, providing food and jobs) that would not have existed without the capital you provided.

Did you take a risk? Yes. Were you just gambling? No. In contrast, there's no scenario where betting on a sports game or memecoin creates new real-world economic value.

Stock investing has upward bias due to productivity. Also inflation offset. You can check long term S&P growth since inception. Stock market has positive EV on average. It's a positive sum game.

Sports betting or gambling has nevative EV and you lose more (on average) than you win.

So they are like night and day.

Even if the diffrence is 49.9% odds versus 51.01% odds that is worlds apart when it comes to laws of large numbers.

Tesla stock is worth more than the top 14 auto makers around the world, speaking about gambling speculative assets.

You can touch gold and take it in your hands.

Yoy can't touch Facebook too, but damn it's expensive.

You can touch Facebook. They have offices with desks and computers. That's priced in the stock value.