We are seeing the commodification and universalisation of shadow banking: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-23/china-shadow-bankers-go-online-as-peer-to-peer-sites-boom.html
This kind of activity comes with a health warning.
Should you participate? NO.
Sure, you could make money by participating in this, just as you could by gambling. But if you do want to make money then don't gamble and don't participate in such sites: much better to focus your profiteering on organising such activities! Not that that is moral either, just as organising prostitution and underground arms sales is not moral (working for a national or publicly-quoted arms sales organisation may or may not be moral - at least there we would have something to debate).
The trouble with morality is that it seems so limiting. But with immoral excitement comes, at the end of the day, the price - which is: sudden destruction.
If you do have money to spare after you have ensured that you have money to cover all your necessities (and perhaps even your lifestyle), then do not invest in the stock market and government bonds (which are in some ways an even bigger gamble today).
Rather, invest in small businesses you know personally, regard as sound, and on which you can keep an eye yourself. If those businesses go down the drain, at least you will watch them doing so, you will know why they are going down the drain, and you may even be able to do something about them - which is not the case with all the other things.
Even better: put your money into political, educational and social reform, or into the needs of the poor.
Such investments will bring you not only eternal rewards in the world to come, as promised by Jesus the Lord, but such investments will also bring you deep satisfaction right now because they are worthwhile in themselves. And they bring more than enough excitement.
Sphere: Related Content
This kind of activity comes with a health warning.
Should you participate? NO.
Sure, you could make money by participating in this, just as you could by gambling. But if you do want to make money then don't gamble and don't participate in such sites: much better to focus your profiteering on organising such activities! Not that that is moral either, just as organising prostitution and underground arms sales is not moral (working for a national or publicly-quoted arms sales organisation may or may not be moral - at least there we would have something to debate).
The trouble with morality is that it seems so limiting. But with immoral excitement comes, at the end of the day, the price - which is: sudden destruction.
If you do have money to spare after you have ensured that you have money to cover all your necessities (and perhaps even your lifestyle), then do not invest in the stock market and government bonds (which are in some ways an even bigger gamble today).
Rather, invest in small businesses you know personally, regard as sound, and on which you can keep an eye yourself. If those businesses go down the drain, at least you will watch them doing so, you will know why they are going down the drain, and you may even be able to do something about them - which is not the case with all the other things.
Even better: put your money into political, educational and social reform, or into the needs of the poor.
Such investments will bring you not only eternal rewards in the world to come, as promised by Jesus the Lord, but such investments will also bring you deep satisfaction right now because they are worthwhile in themselves. And they bring more than enough excitement.
1 comment:
Thank you for your post. It goes against much of what is taught in how to make money, but when that becomes an end in itself it is wrong.
I have lent to a local company and it may indeed go down the drain but it is not through want of trying and I shall still be proud to have invested in a company that at least tried to make a better future for their children than to turn to drink as some do here in Latvia.
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