Time (travel) is on My Side

While we were home a few weeks ago, my dad was watching Fox News (because that's what he does) and they were talking about the stock market.  It was the day that the stock market went over the 13,000 mark for just a quick second.  I was half listening to what they were talking about, mainly they focused on what stocks have shown the best return over the past one, five, and ten years.  It was interesting, and it got me thinking:  what if I could go back in time.  It just kind of came to me and I don't know why.

Now, when you think about going back in time, there is always the question of what to do.  Where do you go?  Who do you meet?  There are also the questions like is there going to be a butterfly effect?  Will what I do in the past make a difference to the future?  There's always someone that'll say 'I'd go back and stop [fill in the blank] from happening.'  If you go back and kill Adolph Hitler, will World War Two still happen?  If you go back and stop the gunmen on the grassy knoll (yup, that just happened) from killing John Kennedy, does the United States get out of Vietnam much earlier than we did?  All kinds of options for time travelers.  Personally, I think everything that has happened in history has happened for a reason and even if you try to stop it, it will still happen.  Like Judgement Day in the 'Terminator' movie series.  It's going to happen no matter how hard you try to stop it.  Or, do you do something to benefit yourself and your family?

That's the way to go.  Take your knowledge of something like the stock market and make some bank.  I know that there are all kinds of variables here.  Finding a stock broker, getting the money, etc. etc.  Let's put those variables out of the equation.  Let's just pretend that you can play the stock market without a stock broker.  And let's say you have one thousand dollars in your back pocket.  What do you do?  Most people could just say, 'take that one thousand dollars and throw it all at Apple or IBM and walk away.'  And that makes sense, jump back to 2012 and live a decent life in luxury.  Or do you take your chance and really play the market.  Watch the rises and falls of individual stocks.  Do you buy stock in Enron and cash out months before their world bottoms out?  Do you wait for the recent economic crash to happen and buy a bunch of cheap stocks and wait for two or three years when they have recovered a little bit?  You know, spend a little here a little there over a large spread and then collect it all for a profit? 

There are so many things that you can do.  I don't claim to know much of anything about the stock market or financial thinking in general.  All I know is that if I were to go back in time and bring some money to play the stock market, I would defiantly watch for the high water marks and cash out when I can.  When I know I should.