Doug Casey quote you might like h/t nostr:npub13l3lyslfzyscrqg8saw4r09y70702s6r025hz52sajqrvdvf88zskh8xc2
"A speculator doesn’t allocate capital in order to grow a business or create something. He simply takes advantage of distortions in the market to increase his personal share of existing wealth. Most speculative opportunities have political roots, taking advantage of distortions created by laws, regulations, taxes, or other government action."
"Capitalists, landowners and laborers are by necessity speculators. So is the consumer in providing for anticipated future needs. There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.
A capitalist is always also virtually an entrepreneur and speculator. He always runs the chance of losing his funds. There is no such thing as a perfectly safe investment. If it were possible to calculate the future state of the market, the future would not be uncertain. There would be neither entrepreneurial ‘loss nor profit.
The fact that the term “speculator” is today used only with an opprobrious connotation clearly shows that our contemporaries do not even suspect in what the fundamental problem of action consists."
Ludwig von Mises
