You're not imagining it. The economy looks different for our generation. Personal finance looks different for our generation. We live in a time where home ownership can feel elusive to even dual-income households. A time where comfortable retirement feels less like a certainty and more like a strategy. When the status quo is no longer serving us, it is necessary to pivot.
Our US financial system is the greatest wealth building tool ever created, and for far too long this tool was utilized by far too few. Today, more people are investing in the stock market than ever,
yet the wealthiest 10% of the population still holds 89% of the stocks in America. So if access to the stock market isn't the problem, then what is continuing to drive the wealth divide? The lack of access to the capital required to invest in a meaningful way.
The benefits of American commerce industrialism have been concentrated at the ownership level. That means companies and their executives need investors. Our tax-system is set up to disproportionately reward investors in comparison to those that simply earn a salary. We're not here to change that.
We want to leverage the current economic system in a way that benefits more people. We want to take the workers, the employees of these companies and through investment, make them owners in their own right. By having a component of their future based on being able to invest more upfront, securing a greater amount of gains, the middle class will grow as they begin to rebuild their financial security.
It's now or never. The long term sustainability of these companies that we're investing in, are dependent on the general population doing well. The middle class are their customers. If companies and their executives do well at the expense of their customers for too long, eventually the wheels will come off the whole system. The reason this hasn't happened yet is because so many have been buoyed by cheap debt. Our solution at Raise allows the companies that are the building blocks of our economy to do well with their customers.
This isn't about handouts. We're charging the middle class for access to the tools to change their own financial future. At the end of the day, vegetables aren't free and neither is McDonald's, but only one of those things is going to be better for you in the long run. We're talking about a solution to long-term financial health. It's not sexy. It's not fun. There's no confetti when you sign up and do a trade based on a stock-tip you heard on TikTok. What you do get, is the ability to take care of yourself and your family in 30 years. Which I think is pretty darn sexy.
Wesley Belden