THOUGHT FOR THURSDAY 17TH JANUARY 2008
From top share author MALCOLM STACEY
Hello Crazy Club,
You may be feeling a bit fed up with shares at the moment. They keep on creeping down.
But it's all swings and roundabouts, gang. Some days shares are up, sometimes down. At the moment most of our baibes are probably down.
This is the nature of the Crazyland game. If shares went up in a straight line, we would all be millionaires and there would be nobody left to do any work. So we would have all to start working again. Which is not a good idea - not for this lazy old punter, anyhow.
But if shares go down a lot, they rise a lot. Taken over the long term, they rise more than they fall. The world gets richer. Not sadly for the poorer countries - and not for some people in well-off countries, either.
But gradually, living standards are being raised in plenty of places - especially in the Middle East, India and China.
This is because, as far as I can see, people's expectations in the UK rise all the time. True, a lot of this wealth is temporary - fuelled by less than prudent buying on credit cards. But we still seem - most of us - to be better off.
I remember the fifties, when everything was still rationed, nobody had cars and it snowed every winter's day. That's all gone now. I know we still have poverty - and I sympathise with those folk in that plight. But poverty isn't an every day thing any more in the UK.
Now as the UK gets richer, its growth will improve and shares will go up in value. Not at the present moment, I know, but eventually, yes. That's if history has anything to do with it. Feel better, now? Rocking on!
UKSA is the leading independent organisation for private shareholders in the United Kingdom. It campaigns to protect your rights as a shareholder and runs educational activities for members.
