Reply #4: We're all supposed to be businessmen and businesswomen

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

Whether we're preachers, artists, doctors, lawyers, dentists, engineers, or anything else, we're supposed to identify ourselves as businessmen or businesswomen. We're supposed to be making a profit and investing that profit in stocks, real estate, land, or commodities and becoming entrepreneurs of our life. Our life itself is now a business and if we're not speculating and investing our money, we're falling behind.

When I was a kid, no one around me invested in stocks or land. None of my friends' parents dabbled in the stock market or bought extra homes. They had savings accounts in the bank maybe, or they bought U.S. government savings bonds. If their parents made money, they lived well, but they didn't have to become obssessed with placing their money well, just to keep up.

I fear that America has now become entirely too focused on finance and investment. We don't make as many things as we used to and our economy has geared up to become a financial services economy instead of a manufacturing economy. If we make anything, or provide a service, it's not a purpose or end in itself. Whatever we do as a living, from doctoring to plumbing, it becomes merely a means to acquire profits so we can investment them in our business, which is a our personal life.