Is there a benefit to racism?

[*michaelsean*]

(08-15-2018, 09:36 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Those things are all valued based upon the estimate that someone is willing to pay for them. Your wealth in those sorts of assets is predicated on the idea that you will be taking money from someone else. The assessed value of your home or the stock valuation of your portfolio is nothing more than some finance person saying "I can make someone pay this amount for this thing to get you money."

You realize that value of your portfolio when you sell, hopefully at a high point, at which point someone will purchase those stocks and, if you did things right, lose value on them because you sold at a high point. You've now created a loser out of the person that purchased those stocks.

Your home's value works in very much the same way. The real value of the home is in the materials that make it up and what is inside of it. Anything beyond that is just speculation on what someone will pay for it. The added value isn't tangible and can be lost at any time. There are a variety of reasons to sell, but the same principal exists in real estate as it does in stocks. You sell to increase your money, hopefully at a high point in the market. If you sell at a high point in the market, then the person that buys will lose out when the market decreases.

Capitalism.

You don't have to sell to have wealth.  The materials are also what someone would pay for it.  There is no value to anything that isn't based on what someone will pay, and what they pay with is subject to market changes.  So when someone says we are willing to give you $60 for that stock you paid $55 for, then my wealth increases even if I didn't sell it.