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Ultimate, as a fellow cheap skate I enjoyed reading your well written post and the follow ups. I agree with Ed's response that it is not really an issue of patriotism. That said, I still think you are doing the right thing by staying in the stock market.
A free market is just a place where people freely trade goods and services. Both parties place a value on the this and if agreeable a trade is made. The stock market "works" because an investor exchanges their real savings to a company which uses it as capital to expand their business. In return the investor shares in the company's expected future growth.
But what if we pull out a crystal ball and see that the company's growth will fall from 10% to 5% and it will stay that way forever. In a free market we would predict that the savings we are willing to pay for that future growth would be less. Would it be patriotic to stay the course? Would it be patriotic if we could convince everyone to stay invested in that company? I would argue no because that money should be used to capitalize other more productive assets.
Of course, no one, and I do mean no one has such a crystal ball. In the long run the best we can expect is that the economy will grow and that we as investors will share in that growth (less investment costs and taxes). So, in the abscence of any good crystal all we mere mortals can do is diversify in low cost investments and stay the course.
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