Chris Pirnak - Is Day Trading (Gambling) a Sin?
February 16, 2021
(left, not Chris Pirnak)
While millions are losing their shirts, millions more are making a killing in the stock market. The Fed has flooded the market with "liquidity" and it goes up every day as it did in the roaring twenties.
Hypnoti$ed, people ignore the fact they have been disenfranchised, and enslaved. And, if Chris Pirnak is right, soon to be dispossessed as well.
"It is clear that the powers-that-be are encouraging [these boom-bust cycles], as this is the most effective way for the bottom 90% of the population to lose whatever they have left."
I asked Chris, an experienced trader and born-again Christian: Do you consider stock trading to be gambling? Is gambling a sin? Or is it only a sin to lose?
by Chris Pirnak
(henrymakow.com)
With regards to your concerns over trading and gambling; I often get asked this question. Is trading a sin? Is speculating a sin?
Here is what I have determined, and this takes my understanding of the monetary and financial systems into account. It also incorporates the underpinnings of our social policies as well, and how they are funded. Social benefit recipients, please take note of this conversation.
The short answer is "yes," but....
Despite what we hear or think, there are no essential differences between investing and speculating...
Is there a rule in the Bible that states thou shalt not speculate short-term? Of course not. Everything is playing the odds, especially in buying assets; Even those who profess to be Godly will buy gold and silver to speculate under this monetary system hoping to profit from a collapse. What do we hear from the gold shills all time time? We can buy for easy gains as they gamble that the PTB are losing control.
I know I may be rationalizing, and I do understand that on some level, we do gamble. But, I know when to speculate and trade and when to sit on my hands. I think of it as a business and a way to fatten up my cash portion of my personal balance sheet. But the PTB who have shackled us to this monetary system make it a necessity to do so.
Every time we invest; whether we buy stocks, bonds, real estate, PMs, farm land, or cryptos; and regardless of the holding period, we are speculating for gain. Somebody may tell you otherwise and pretend not to be speculating, but he or she will gladly take the gains when they accrue.
(l. Chris studies the menu on his 55th birthday.)
We are now a nation of speculators; regardless of our time frame.
There are people out there reading this who think I am a hypocrite, but will gladly take their capital gains in gold, owner-occupied real estate, or bitcoin, and pat themselves on the back for making large profits. But these same individuals will look down on day traders with disdain. If they truly wanted to be righteous, perhaps they should kick back their capital gains to the person from whom they initially purchased their assets. I am sure they wouldn't.
It's all essentially a gamble. I have two crypto trading accounts and they went up about 20% since Friday. Is it a sin to gain from that? If we impute any morality into the equation, we would have to stop buying everything.
Many traders and speculators do not find it gambling.
Okay, do not take this trading stuff personally. Do not attach any emotion or morality to it. If you do, that is a one way ticket to losses. It's better off to never engage in it. I never feel like a hero or loser. I get frustrated if I deviate from my algorithms and lose; for rarely do I gain if I deviate. That to me is gambling, and if we view it as gambling we are doomed to fail, because the house always wins. It took me 35 years to get to the point where I am at right now. I look at it as if I am just drinking a cup of water from a spring-fed stream...
The worst trading mistake I ever made was when I lost about $25k in one trade in early 2001. Now, that may sound catastrophic, but taken in the context of gaining about $500k in day trading profits during that 12-month period, I was able to put it into perspective. My account started out with about $5,000 in 1998.
I look back and consider that initial profit as a Godsend, because it led me down the path to financial and spiritual self-sovereignty. I quit my job in 2001 and began my spiritual journey, which continues today. For the first several years, the road was very arduous and lonely, but without these initial gains, I would still be toiling away on Wall Street in total ignorance of the truth. I would be essentially one of the many billions of lost souls, doomed to perdition.
Makow replied:
"I guess the bottom line is, does trading harm or enhance your inner (spiritual) life."
Pirnak:
I ended up engaging in trading and speculating as part of a lifestyle, because it suited my personality better than working for others or running a business. Some people can play the piano, run marathons, or develop computer software. Most people can work for others, but I always struggled with routine. Fortunately, I seem to be able to have a better grasp regarding how financial markets and assets prices move.
While some look at what people like I do as gambling, I see market trends in a more rational and concise way. Being able to more accurately predict these trends allows me to profit.
For me, I trade and speculate out of necessity, as I never really had an engaging or influential personality. Even with my abilities in this specific niche, I was never really employable. It works out well for me.
With this said, having these abilities affords me the resources and time to study the world around us and relay it to others. If I only cared about myself I would have remained on Wall Street and hated life.
I am grateful that I now live a life free of worry.
PS- Oh one more thing. I forgot to add in the response. I am a 20 year student of behavioral and mass psychology and seek to understand The human condition and human mind when it comes to financial and economic matters.
I'm intrigued by the sobering observation that people are rationally irrational. In my realm of trading and speculating, I can use this to my advantage to spot value and trends. The best part about this type of psychology is that the people do not realize it and believe they are perfectly rational. That's why irrational behavior in economics can be so predictable.
PS-2 - I am amazed with how quickly investors have forgotten the past bust cycles and are now losing all the restraint. I have never observed this in my lifetime, and the people seem almost drunk. They are acting in an ostensibly a irrational manner. But this irrationality is rational, given their conditioning and brainwashing by the media in general.
Because the human species is quickly losing its free will, these boom-bust cycles are accelerating in time and increasing in amplitude. It is clear that the powers-that-be are encouraging this, as this is the most effective way for the bottom 90% of the population to lose whatever they have left.
I figure the powers-that-be are asking themselves, why not let the people do it to themselves? They are letting the plebes hang themselves.
So many people are worried about the Great Reset and the rental society that is planned. But I say the plebes will help to facilitate the process by working to accentuate these boom-bust cycles in which they slowly get fleeced. A docile and malleable population is easily parted from their assets and the bottom 90% of the population will not own a thing in the next decade. The people did it to themselves.
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Robert K said (February 16, 2021):
It is unquestionably a sin to concentrate on one's own well-being while ignoring a correctable evil that breeds ubiquitous corruption. The existing financial system has been designed to alienate people from the real abundance of the earth, thereby generating a society rotten with hypocrisy and prostitution. "The love of money (in effect, idol worship, since money is just numbers, a pure abstraction) is the root of all evil". You cannot serve two masters: in a corrupt, enslaving financial context one is obliged to choose between the love of money and the love of one's fellow man. Until the financial system is reformed, people will be diminished and their environment will be ugly.