Why work so hard when you can just retire on GME and Dogecoin?

Question

The whole economy is super speculative, just makes you wonder why am I working so hard at my job while investing in something boring like index funds hoping to have a nice retirement by 65?There is a whole generation who just knows about 1000% return on these speculative gamble that really has no real values. FOMO into them worked.All these are very sobering to an old soul like myself.And wonder what the world will be for my kids.

philipkglass · Accepted Answer

You could make the same comment at the turn of the millennium, referring to dot-com stocks. Some people bought and sold at the right times to win big and retire early. Most didn't. GameStop stock is not a magic ticket to free money any more than Yahoo! stock was.

AnimalMuppet · Answer

You could take it all to Vegas and put it on 00 on a roulette wheel. You'd win something like 36x your investment, so 3600% returns. Of course, you're much more likely to lose it all.
Yes, some people made a bundle on GME. Others didn't. If you try GME-style tactics to make a fortune, you're much more likely to lose your shirt, because it works only rarely.
The GME situation had a lot of publicity about people making all this money. (Come to think of it, so does Vegas.) But despite the publicity, it's rare. So the options that you have are, do you want to put your money into something boring like index funds so that you have something at 65, or do you want to have nothing at 65 because you foolishly chased mirages that almost never pan out (and didn't for you)?
That's always been the world. "Sucker born every minute", and all that. It was the world your grandparents lived in, and you live in, and your kids will live in. The difference is that the internet lets you read about people who beat the odds, and therefore makes it look more likely that you can beat them too.

smt88 · Answer

There has always been gambling and speculation. I don't know of any evidence that speculative behavior has increased because of these internet bubbles. The pandemic and very low interest rates might be the main driver of these hype cycles, and we won't know for sure for a few years.