I think there's a vast difference in what you expert from Wall Street compared to Main Street.
Investing in a portfolio and watching a candles comes with one very singular yet very clear expectation. Those candles moving in ways that's favourable to you and yielding an unrefined monetary return.
Investing in Main Street? You would do that for a multitude of very different reasons or personal reasons. For instance, that coffee place down town is where you meet up with your friends, or you have fond memories of that place because you met your spouse there a decade ago. The value of a funeral parlour would be that the entire local community, at one point or another, will get into touch with them. Hairdresser? Corona forces me to do my hair at home, but as soon as I can, I'll go back to my hairdresser where you'd have the banter and the relaxing atmosphere while you get treated.
So, the idea of investing in new main street businesses isn't because they fulfil a simple, crude financial return. It would be because you expect them to flourish and add a wide range of intangible values and a unique identity to a local community, which you'd be hard pressed to find in one-size-fit-all chains of stores and services.
Put more succinctly, sure, you could invest in Starbucks on the stock market. But if you've been to one of their venues, you've pretty much seen them all. Which is the opposite for an independent coffee place where the owner went out on a limb to add their own unique touches and has build up their own specific clientele.
There are lots of tiny public companies with dubious finances and wild plans. I mean, you've heard of the S&P 500, right, that has companies like Starbucks that you associate with Wall Street? There's on the order of 5,000 US public companies, maybe more, which means 90% are small companies you've never heard of. The majority of them sound pretty scammy, but so does the funeral home mentioned in this thread. It sounds like a "blank check" company and there are a lot of those you can buy via any discount broker like Robinhood.
It’s an investment in the same sense that American Express is investing in me.
I invested in an associates coffee shop. A pool of people invested for 60% of the business, with the founder earning additional share for hitting milestones and getting the opportunity to buyout.
Charity would be giving money to a worthwhile cause without expecting any direct return. You don't buy a service or a good. You just give away money to a cause without expecting anything in return. Charity is an act of altruism.
As far as main street businesses are concerned, customers very much expect a concrete return: a decent cup of coffee, a proper haircut, a well sewn suit, leather shoes that don't wear out and so on. The difference between a large franchise and a small business is the added value of being treated like the individual, and part of the community, that you are. The altruistic part may then be that you understand that you're supporting others in your local community to make a living, even though you still expect a good or service in return.
The stock market is about investing in a venture with a clear singular goal: monetary return through speculation. It's basically a form of lending money in hopes of gaining even more money.
That doesn't necessarily mean that speculation in itself is bad. Your intentions are what makes all the difference. For instance, you could attach a clear intention to your investment: because you feel that the businesses you invest in are worthwhile i.e. your values align with the values of that venture. This is where the whole notion of "ethical investing" comes in: you choose to invest in ventures that "do no harm" to society and/or the ecosystem.
Whereas, if you simply invest money in the stock market, without caring in what types of ventures exactly, just so you can extract wealth for yourself, well, that's where all kinds of moral questions start to pop up.
The latter is nothing new. Throughout history, immoral money lending has been condemned an uncountable amount of times. This is what Cicero wrote about it:
> ...of whom, when inquiry was made, what was the best policy in the management of one's property, he answered "Good grazing." "What was next?" "Tolerable grazing." "What third?" "Bad grazing." "What fourth?" "Tilling." And when he who had interrogated him inquired, "What do you think of lending at usury?" Then Cato answered, "What do you think of murder?"
Investing is not lending. Usury is a nebulous concept, one mans usury is another’s lifeline. Cicero was a murdering hypocritical prig who hated anything that would help the poor pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Investing in a portfolio and watching a candles comes with one very singular yet very clear expectation. Those candles moving in ways that's favourable to you and yielding an unrefined monetary return.
Investing in Main Street? You would do that for a multitude of very different reasons or personal reasons. For instance, that coffee place down town is where you meet up with your friends, or you have fond memories of that place because you met your spouse there a decade ago. The value of a funeral parlour would be that the entire local community, at one point or another, will get into touch with them. Hairdresser? Corona forces me to do my hair at home, but as soon as I can, I'll go back to my hairdresser where you'd have the banter and the relaxing atmosphere while you get treated.
So, the idea of investing in new main street businesses isn't because they fulfil a simple, crude financial return. It would be because you expect them to flourish and add a wide range of intangible values and a unique identity to a local community, which you'd be hard pressed to find in one-size-fit-all chains of stores and services.
Put more succinctly, sure, you could invest in Starbucks on the stock market. But if you've been to one of their venues, you've pretty much seen them all. Which is the opposite for an independent coffee place where the owner went out on a limb to add their own unique touches and has build up their own specific clientele.