The Concept of Investing Money Explained
The concept of investing money is actually complicated. A person who is investing money has a sophisticated understanding of the ancient feudal system whereby men who had lands would give those lands to other men to work and share in their profits and in their harvest. The person who saved more money than he needed to live on, had money saved. Eventually, giving money to banks and getting an interest became a sensible way of increasing the amount of money one had and one could save. The old stories of the penny pinchers were real in that people saw that by allowing other people access to their money for a fee was a safe and honest way of making more money. That is basically the concept of making money through investment.
Investing money in a business could involve becoming a partner in that business. However, if one has no knowledge of the product that the business is engaged in, becoming a partner ceases to be a "working partner" and becomes an investor partner. A company that needs capital to grow their facility can offer shares of their stock on the stock exchange. Almost all companies, at least, those companies that are incorporated under the laws of the state in which they are located have shares allocated to their owners. These shares constitute a portion of the profit made by that company that is owed to the shareholders. If those shares are put on the stock exchange, more investors are solicited to become investors in that company. If the company grows, the shares become worth more than bought, and the investor has made a profit which is why investing money is a very enticing financial gambit.
Some people are very much against the concept of investing money since they see it as a form of gambling. However, through the centuries, if investing money had been frowned upon, the huge factories and business enterprises would not have been started. The difference between the concept of investing money and gambling can be explained by considering, for example, a person going to a casino with $5000 to gamble. He is not investing that money in another person's concept, product, work, success or even money management. The person going into the casino is betting on his luck being better than the casino owners luck. The fact is that if he had taken that $5000 and bought shares in that casino, he would be, in fact, be a partner owner of that casino.
Thinking about investing money is a very serious subject. The gambler is using his luck while the investor is doing research into companies that he sees a future in (which means profits). Following a stock on the exchange and buying when it is low and selling when it is high is not gambling. It is playing the exchange and taking out profits that the company has made from sales of its product.