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Post being replied to

Hang on by ndtnguy

You've identified the inherent risk with all transactions in which people are allowed to spend their own money. People think cigarettes/hookers/blow/video games/baseball cards/designer purses/really great Italian wool socks/NDNation subscriptions/a college degree/etc. will make them happy, successful, rich, or some combination thereof.

They are frequently wrong at least in part and sometimes ruinously so. And there are reasonable, compelling arguments for limiting what people are allowed to do with their own money in the ordinary course.

But you get into dirty words---that is, words thought dirty by contemporary general consensus---like "paternalism" very quickly doing that. It's a steep climb to mark out straight equity purchases as uniquely morally hazardous in a marketplace that is mostly moral hazard (the position may be easier to establish for unlimited-downside transactions like some options). The argument sounds at first blush like fairly routine snobbery or protectionism on the part of the moneyed class.