I took Economics for my A Levels. I did well enough in the first year when the subject material was covering microeconomics related stuff like marginal utility to be offered a S Paper in Economics. I thought Economics was something I had interest in until I started studying macroeconomics and attending S Paper Econs lectures.

I won’t say I lost interest. Rather, I tried to run away and hide from the system we were living in. I wanted to go under a rock and not try to understand what I felt was a totally screwed up system. I didn’t want to face the facts about the system we were in. It was scary stuff.

A lot of things just didn’t make sense to me then. I could understand what the textbooks were saying. I could understand what the S Paper lecturers were trying to highlight. But what really got to me was how in the end, the individual was powerless to change a system that is so messed up that it has led to excesses and suffering. I couldn’t fathom how we even allowed ourselves to be led down a road that was powered by the greed and fear of humans, a system that pandered to the worse in humans.

It was only when I started working, and even then slightly apprehensively, that I began to regain interest in such stuff.

I can’t run away from this system. I am tangled in this web. I probably can’t change it. I jolly well better learn as much I can about this system and understand it, if not to profit from it, at least not to be made a patsy.

Doing nothing is a position taken.

And so, yesterday, I got myself a CDP account. I don’t intend to trade, speculate or invest. Yet.

But to me, getting the account is like getting a driver’s license. You get it even if you don’t expect to use it because you never know when it might come in handy.

I got it as an acknowledgment that whether I like it or not, this is a game (i.e. financial machinations of this world) I have to play, either as an active participant or a defensive one.

Anyway, something worried me when I was opening the account. Half of the people at the customer service counters or waiting for their turn were elderly folks around the age of my grandma. I’m obviously using guesstimation here.

I’m not sure why they were there. They could be there for a myriad of reasons but it just worries me that the elderly is involved in anything related to the stock market. It just doesn’t seem like the wise thing to do considering they have a shorter time horizon.

What was also interesting was how some of these elderly folks were accompanied by younger looking individuals. I would guess that these individuals were around my age. I have my own conclusions about these individuals and none of it is good.

Anyway, yeah. Yesterday was one more step.