Greentext

My employer and I set aside a little money into my 401 account. Sometimes, it gains, and sometimes, it loses. Giving your money away to a third party and saying, "Use this to make more money, then bring me back more than I gave you," always involves the chance they'll come back with nothing.

So yeah, any investment is always a gamble. The safest worthwhile investment is a house (savings accounts and CDs usually do not beat inflation). It's how the middle class builds generational wealth. But in the last few years, it's really been flipped on its head.

I'm not sure how COVID-era monetary policy will play out in 20 years, but what I do know is a lot of people bought houses when interest rates were basically free money and now have no reason to sell. My little brother pays less for his bigger house on more land than me. Why would he sell? Any house he can buy next will be a guaranteed downgrade and lost equity. He's borrowing at 2¼. I'm borrowing at 5⅝. Anyone buying today is probably looking down the barrel of 7%.

And this doesn't even touch on speculators and corporate slum lords.

But in this capitalist economic system that assigns a value to literally everything, everything is a gamble.