>Dragan, your socialist roots may be showing.

Or a lack of knowledge of how it really works. From what I gathered, it's just putting your money in someone else's hand, and the popular wisdom (from back home) is that there's only one thing which grow's in someone else's hand, but that one is not printable.

> Sure, the stock market and the way it operates are somewhat skewed for the fat cats. IPOs in particular should be overhauled. But the securities industry is heavily regulated and they do a pretty good job of it considering how much temptation there is to cheat when there is that much money flying around. The bottom line is ordinary Joes like you and me can expect to make good money in the market, too, and without any special knowledge. And without transaction fees, for that matter. There is no sounder investment than a mutual fund tied to the level of the market as a whole. Such index funds mimic the performance of the Fortune 500, or other standard stock group. Some years they go up, some years they go down, just like the stock market. Over time stocks outperform any other investment, including real estate.

OK, so there are ways to play it safe. But if you want to buy something that'd yield more, how can you know whether you're betting your money on the next Enron?