Comment by neilv

> The problem will resolve itself if (when?) the market crashes.

Someone said something like, Everyone thinks they're a genius, when the market only goes up.

Although, one thing different now is the heavy throughout-the-day manipulation of retail investors, effectively making strong social groups and identities around it.

That wasn't a thing when, say, ETrade started, and lots of people dabbled, and found it was hard to lose money, just trading around different companies, with little understanding of how things even supposedly work, much less how things actually worked.

Today, from what I occasionally glimpse, you've got all these supposed skills you're applying as a retail investor/sheep/pawn (including various degrees of snake oil, or thinking you're going to be one of the smarter people on a pump/dump scheme that leaves others holding the bag), and constant social groups where people even self-deprecatingly celebrate huge day-trading losses. Like a wholesome support group that actively encourages you to stick with the bad habit, rather than encourages you to stay sober.

So maybe, when the next big culling comes, you'll have lots of people who can somehow still get margin accounts, and will say, "Blood in the streets, and I'm missing 3 limbs, but, hey, stocks are on sale!" And a thundering chorus of other addicts, and their manipulators, encouraging them.

(Disclosures: S&P 500 ETF with low expense ratio in tax-advantaged, plus an emergency fund that goes nowhere near the market. :)