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Trading stocks makes me feel dirty
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this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Maybe you can enlighten me on more ethical ways to invest my money because at this point I think not putting money into a 401k is a terrible financial decision.
Tax deferred compounding interest is too good of a deal for the average person to pass up. Over 30 years you'll be looking at anywhere from 100-150% return on investment.
$50 a paycheck for 30 years with 5% avg return turns your $39k total contributions into $100k in retirement savings. $100 turns $78k in total contributions into $200k savings.
For many people who find saving difficult, me included, being able to set it and forget it, plus the understanding it needs to be for retirement to get the full return, has allowed me to save money I would have spent/wasted otherwise.
Due to the compounding factor, the sooner a person starts the better the return, so to discourage young people to not put money into a 401k is IMO actively harmful.
IMO It's like telling someone they shouldn't have health insurance. Yeah it's bullshit that society forces us to participate in a fucked up system but not having it puts future you at a terrible risk.
Just to clarify: a 401k is just a savings account that is tax deferred. By itself that doesn't make any money or interest. Most people then take that money and have it invested. That's what I'm commenting on.
The return in a 401k is from (typically) a managed fund or an index fund. It's a good return, as you note. That's because it's largely from rent extraction.
It's a great deal if you are ok with functionally owning a small apartment in some other state where a family pays half their paycheck so that you get your 5% return on investment. But know that is what is happening.
The whole "I have no other choice" position is past any point I'm trying to make. I don't know anyone's specific situation.
What are ethical ways people could/should invest their money into instead?
I'm not going to ever be a landlord, but I want to retire at the point.
To be clear you don't need to have money invested/growing in order to retire. You just need money. Putting $50 in a jar is still $50 you'll have in retirement to spend on something. Nothing unethical about that.
But to counter inflation and sometimes just for the sake of wanting more, you can take an additional step of investing your money so that it makes more money. That passive income needs to come from somewhere.
If you invest in stocks, it's coming from the company's exploitation of its workers to generate profits (in addition to other rent seeking behavior; many companies own sizable real estate investments).
If you invest in real estate, it's coming from rents.
If you invest in funds, it probably owns stocks or real estate.
What you're really asking for is a way to generate passive income without exploiting anyone. But this is a solved problem. The answer is a government entitlement program that folks can pay into (i.e. Social Security). It's just been gutted by Congress. Did they remove the only general ethical option for investing for retirement? Maybe.
This isn't to say there aren't places where each of us feel we could put our money and have it grow without feeling part of something unethical. Maybe a local business could use an investment and be happy to pay back interest. Some folks are morally opposed to government bonds but I think they're fine as an option.
And thinking of investments outside of the box a bit can help too. Spending money today to upgrade or buy better things can itself have a future return on investment and be equally good of an investment strategy than putting money in a savings account.