The Investing Epidemic Affecting Many Young Men

Dave and Daniel Crosby discuss the dangerous rise of gambling disguised as investing.

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One of the questions I was most excited to ask you was, what do you think about all this crazy gamblification we’re seeing of the investing arena right now, particularly by men thirty-five and under, according to the data? I mean, it was a problem five years ago. Now it’s beyond a problem. How does this tie into a lot of what you’ve come to learn?

I won’t mince words. It’s a, it’s a cancer, uh, it’s a cancer on young men in particular that has the semblance of investing, but none of the benefits. And I think people have become so cynical. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience when you sit down on a plane and someone asks you what, you know, you know, you do, and you say you work in finance, and they go, “Well, well, You know, I don’t gamble with my money.” And I’ve heard people refer to Wall Street as a casino so many times but the set up is just so different. And I feel like the lower middle class in North America feel so behind after years of relentless inflation. I think young men in particular feel like the only way that they can get ahead is to take a big swing.

The other thing is, I talked earlier about the power of environment, and I said of the three E’s, it’s by far the most powerful.

Yeah, I agree

These things are made to mislead you. They, they are gamified to just nickel and dime you into poverty. They’re the investing equivalent of a Big Mac, right?

Like, perfectly engineered in a lab touch out– to hit every button to get you to overconsume. I mean, it’s just perfectly… It’s perfectly primed to exploit the, uh, the lonely, the forgotten, and the left behind, and it’s gonna do so much bad in the world. I have nothing good to say about it.

I agree. And again, it’s, it’s a problem that you and I and everybody else in the industry was very worried about three years ago, but it’s gotten even worse.

And you’re looking at the online platforms. The brokerages have become so adept at advertising to this weak spot among that constituency they know is most likely to give in and start option trading and meme trading and everything else. And the leverage that I’m seeing used by some young people on speculative investments, even if they get the call right, because of the volatility that’s involved, they’ll be wiped out long before that ends up helping them.

It, it’s frightening. It really is.