That's why if you're up to date with the frindge ideas of today, you won't be so surprised years down the road when some of them start becoming more mainstream, even while everyone else is just hearing about it for the first time.
What are your 'fringe' political ideas?
- Thread starter Machjo
- Start date
True enough. The problem is, there may be 100 fringe ideas today, out of which perhaps one may (or may not) become mainstream 10 or 20 years from now. Unless one makes it his full time business to explore fringe ideas, you are very likely going to miss the one that may become mainstream.
It is similar to investing in stocks; I have been an investor for more than 15 years. It is quite possible that you may buy a stock today for say, 1 dollar. The company prospers and in 10 years the stock becomes 100 dollars. If you invested 10000 dollars today, you would become a millionaire in 10 years.
The problem is, for each stock that pans out like this, there may be more than a hundred stocks which will go from one dollar to zero in ten years. So right now you don’t know which company will make you a millionaire.
So the prudent investor forgets about the idea of getting rich quickly, and invests in a prudent and wise manner, with a long term strategy, and aims for modest gains. One out of a thousand investors may invest in tomorrow's Microsoft and get lucky, but most of us won’t.
It is the same with fringe ideas. You don’t know which of today’s hundreds of fringe ideas, if any will become main stream tomorrow. So in my opinion it is a waste of time to worry about fringe ideas.
Continuing with the example above of the stock which went from 1 dollar to 100 dollar, I would wait until the stock reaches say 30 dollars. Then when I am convinced that the fundamentals of the company are sound, that the stock has not risen due to speculation and has good future growth prospects, I may invest a modest amount in it. When I become convinced that the stock is overvalued I may get out at say, 60 dollars. So rather than getting 100 fold increase and going from 10000 $ to million $, I will be happy to go from 10,000 $ to 20,000 $.
I look at the fringe ideas in the same way.
Slightly off topic Sir Rupe, I personally question investing money in stocks, when you can do so in Mutual funds with far less knowledge, far less risk, and still gain exactly what you are after- "modest gains over the long haul." Works for me.
That is true, JLM, but there are some problems associated with mutual funds. If you put some effort in it, you can do better by buying individual stocks. Over the years I have done better than mutual funds.
Mutual fund is passive investing, stocks is active investment. There is nothing wrong with either of them; they represent different approaches to investing.
Indeed, you could go completely passive. Put your money in index funds, TSE 300, TSE 60, S & P 500 etc., and forget about it, leave it there for several decades. You are bound to get a good rate of return. I do have a fair amount of money in index funds.
But then don’t try to be active about it. Don’t try to time the market, and try to take money out when you think market is going to fall and put money in when you think market is going to rise. That is almost sure way to lose money. With an index mutual fund, put your money in it and forget about it. You are almost guaranteed a modest (8 or 9%) rate of return in the long term.
Nice pic Cliff. Certainly keeping a grip on those white pants! 8O The days when the man had hair on his head! No garden hat I see.
:lol:Sorry Cliff - I just could not resist.