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| Industries/Companies that are Scams (or close enough) Sometimes I feel every company is a scam. But I’ll just give you the best examples I can think of. 1.] Uber/Lyft For more than a decade, every Uber ride was partially subsidized by venture capitalists who invested in Uber. Uber kept losing money because the VCs were allowing them to charge little for a ride while paying the drivers a healthy amount. Then the VCs decided that they wanted their money and profits out of the company. So they sold the company to the “dumb money” (VCs are considered “smart money”).Who is the dumb money? We are. Uber went “public”, i.e. anyone in the public can now buy shares of Uber. We are the dumb money. The result: Uber has no plans to make a profit. The only way to make a profit is to pay drivers less (which won’t happen) or charge more for rides (won’t happen).Many VC-funded companies are like this. Example: WeWork. The VCs acted shocked when it turned out WeWork was just a landlord of office space. They are not stupid. They knew exactly what they were doing. 2.] The stock market There are some very good companies on the stock market. But most are scams (see example above). The main reason private companies go public is so that the investors who were funding it at much cheaper valuations can dump their shares to 401k plans and IRAs. They know the companies are too expensive and they are eager to get rid of their shares so they take the companies public. When a company has an IPO, six months after the IPO the “lockup period” ends. This means that private shareholders can now sell. The stocks almost always sell off then. Why are the early investors so eager to sell the shares of companies they supposedly believe in? 3.] Banks (Stock market part II) FASB 157 was a law put in place in 2007 which forced banks to start taking losses if loans they made were 90 days in default or more (I am simplifying). Overnight, almost all banks collapsed (starting with Lehman Brothers). In 2009, this law was revoked, giving the banks discretion again (aka, they can just use their imaginations) about when to take losses. What other industries are allowed to determine their own losses? The market started to rise then as people would rather be permanently fooled than know the reality. To this day, banks “mark-to-fantasy” the loans on their books. While this seems like a pessimistic view I also don’t mind that they do this because I like to see the stock market go up. A rising stock market means innovation gets funded and the few companies that are good and creative get to exist and thrive. |
| 4.] Stock market part III We usually think the stock market goes up because all the companies are good and the economy is good. This is not really the case. Maybe it is true in the long run but not in the short run. In March 2020, the Federal Reserve began increasing the money supply to avoid a depression driven by Covid. They printed about 40% more money into the economy. The stock market also went up about 40%. Without an increase in money supply, the market would be even or down even without Covid. 5.] The music industry Why is it that the 100 best musicians in the world every week (as ranked by Billboard) are strikingly beautiful or handsome? No ugly people practiced the guitar ever? Also, a few production companies produce basically every hit in the Billboard Top 100 (see the book “The Hit Factory”). Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and every pop artist for the past 2 or 3 decades have basically used the same formula to create hits. And if a singer can’t sing, then no problem. Auto-tune. 6.] Education With $1.5 trillion in student loan debt and rising defaults, someone’s been scammed. 7.] Therapy I do think some therapy can be useful but used with extreme caution however. But what other medical profession is set up so you NEVER stop seeing the doctor (unless you have a terminal illness.) 8.] What industries are not scams? For the most parts: plumbers, electricians, vocational jobs, etc. I know this all seems cynical but in every industry, 5% is good and 95% is awful. Think of doctors. There’s a world of difference between a good one and a bad one. |
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