Investing in the stock market isn’t only for the rich.

You can pocket a portion of your salary and invest it in another company's equity. But you're never going to outpace the bank selling you that stock they got at the IPO rate for the market clearing rate.

I’m a plumber - I’m never getting rich by just saving money.

You can turn $50k into $250k with some savvy investment during a market boom. And $200k is a buncha-lotta money. Then you can keep riding the wave, turning that $250k into $1.25M. And maybe that's going to be enough to retire on.

But you're kidding yourself if you believe you'll ever be CEO-rich by just throwing quarters into a market that's moving multiple trillions a year at a profit. You're even more kidding yourself if you think even millionaire status will protect you from a major medical emergency or a natural disaster or an ugly lawsuit or divorce.

people can also take 50% of the time they spend complaining about billionaires and put it toward sorting out their own finances instead

This was the pitch made by a gaggle of Bitcoin shills five years ago.

It's the pitch being made by a gaggle of goldbugs today.

"Just stop complaining and start investing" was the line pushed by the Reagan Administration way the fuck back in the 1980s. Forty years later, a lot of people who took his advice are still complaining - louder than ever - at those god damn hippie socialist antifa illegal sharia law anchor babies who sold them Enron stock and Lehman stock and Silicon Valley Bank stock.

The 401ks were a failure. At some point, you have to acknowledge that, even if you bet on the right ponies.