Hope - A Get-Poor-Slowly Scheme

I was going through my *junk* recently and came across my tiny baseball/basketball card collection.

I never had much that was valuable, not being so into it, but I have always remembered that my David Robinson Rookie cards were worth something. I had thought they were worth $18 or so apiece. In fact, I had thought they were worth that right off the bat, twenty years ago when they first came out - or close to that time anyway.

So how much are they worth today?

Well, look above. $6 on Amazon!  What happened to my *investment*!?!?!?

This is what happens to a market when everyone piles in.

Baseball cards and whatnot were only valuable because NO ONE preserved/invested in them 50-70 years ago.

Sure, there's still some money to be made by savvy professionals who know how to procure autographs, flip collectibles, and whatnot.

But the passive profits from simply putting store-bought cards in plastic are over - and they've been over for 20-30 years.

The same goes for passive stock market investing.

The lumpen masses are lazy and prone to the propaganda of cherry-picked or *historical* stock returns.

I just read a nauseating post from some chick - a millionaire mommy - who thinks it prudent to assume a 10% ANNUALLY COMPOUNDED rate-of-return when making investments.

And the sad thing is....people really do want to believe her.

There's another side benefit to this no-work, no thought get-rich-slowly scheme.

That is, since one's financial outcome depends on outside factors....when things don't pan out they can simply blame their favorite bogeymen: socialists, capitalists, rich people, poor people, homeschoolers(!), et al.

Go ahead and ask anyone today what they are doing with or think about their investments.  I guarantee you that 95% of them will, in some way or another, simply convey *hope* as their current strategy.  With all that professional, licensed-and-certified advice....that's essentially the only thing being brokered.