I Have Achieved Moral Enlightenment

I may have, quite suddenly, achieved enlightenment.

After looking at my portfolio today, I have arrived at a startling ethical revelation: participation in the stock market is perhaps the most moral act available to a person. For what is trading, if not philanthropy?

You may think of it as a highly efficient charitable operation through which wealth is transferred from oneself to Jane Street, Wall Street, and various multibillion-dollar hedge funds and institutions. And is it not a greater virtue to give unto those who require nothing? Anyone can provide for the needy. Such virtue signaling is commonplace. But to provide for those already possessing abundance is a higher and more demanding ethic. It is charity purified of moral performance. Charity for charity's sake.

The poor, after all, suffer from a deficit of capital. The rich suffer from the burden of not yet having enough yachts. Which condition is truly more tragic? Clearly, yachts > bread.

Moreover, the poor are less moral than the rich. Where would you rather live? Bel Air or the slums? Exactly. We are instinctively drawn toward virtue. This is why penthouses cost millions of dollars. You are not buying square footage. You are purchasing proximity to moral excellence. If heaven exists on earth, it is probably Billionaires’ Row in New York, because of the aggregate moral density of that place.

I have donated the majority of my life savings to entities far more deserving than the impoverished. Through weeks of discipline, I have transferred wealth upward with remarkable efficiency. You may call these losses. But in reality, they are alms. When I bought at the top, I was not being stupid. I was creating liquidity for someone better than me.

And unlike ordinary charity, my giving asks for nothing in return. No thank-you letter. No plaque on a wall. Not even recognition. True generosity is anonymous.

Thus, it follows necessarily that I am more virtuous than most people. I did not lose money. I bought morality.

Thank you. I am done with this sub