It is a day to commemorate the freedom to do anything you want, be it staying at home and barbecue or what not, and not being oppressed by anyone to do a certain action.
But most of us have a feeling of being forced to work in this modern society, or else won't not have enough money to survive, or that we are unwilling to give up our current lifestyle.
We live in a high-tech consumer economy, and we are especially attached to our electronic gadgets.
$Apple (AAPL.US)$ has the highest market cap in the world now, and it shows the high demand for electronic gadgets as well as the lifestyle that comes with it.
Having more wants such as wanting to replace our phones every 2 years, of course leads to us having to earn more money to fund such purchases. On the other hand, we could just control our consumption habits and invest our money wisely to achieve financial independence earlier in our lives.
So, how to invest wisely and what is my trade idea? Well, to me, investing wisely means to diversify your portfolio over a range of investments (don't put all your eggs in one basket!) and to do your own due diligence. Diversification reduces the overall risk your portfolio is exposed to, and that is why I recommend investing in an index fund/ETF like
$SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY.US)$ which tracks 500 large and mid cap companies, and not a single company or industry.
While index funds are great for long term growth, I am young and a thrill-seeker, and I own meme stocks like
$AMC Entertainment (AMC.US)$ and
$GameStop (GME.US)$. I am convinced that they have a short squeeze potential due to all the news of market manipulation and new SEC regulation. Hopefully this will be the ticket to financial independence for the many of us holding the stock. As always, remember to diversify your portfolio and do your due diligence!
Thanks for reading, and ps: I am not a financial advisor!
Baboom : you realize we have a quarter of the world prison population right? lol big brain apes
des10 OP Baboom : Hi, I think it is interesting that you would bring up the topic of prison population! The fact that U.S. has such a huge prison population is somewhat counterintuitive towards "Independence Day" and the so-called "land of the free".
Frankly, I have not done my research in this area, but don't mind me sharing my thoughts and this and feel free to chip in on it.
Where people enjoy freedom to a large extent, freedom tends to be abused as well. While people have the freedom to own firearms, they should not have the freedom to misuse it for their benefit (such as in a robbery). Unfortunately, there will be desperate people in any society and when empowered by a firearm, it will increase the occurrences of violent crime.
Next, precisely because the U.S. is "the land of the free", people are free to advocate their beliefs more pronouncedly and their laws are also influenced by their beliefs. For example, capital punishment (death penalty) is very uncommon in the U.S. because of there are so many organisations that oppose it on moral grounds. Most violent criminals would get sentenced to life imprisonment.
In comparison, in other countries like Singapore that perhaps do not care so much about criminals' lives or perhaps as an act of deterrence, will execute violent criminals or even drug dealers.
This could help to explain why the prison population is so big in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world. First, the government has to remove certain people who are infringing on the freedom/rights of other people. Second, remove can mean putting them in jail or letting them take the room temperature challenge. It is debatable which one is a better option, and it is up to the lawmakers to decide.
Hey, I'm sorry if I only talked about the violent crime part of the story, and perhaps the problem stems from another area that I'm not familiar in. Feel free to chip in!