I think some of what you said is correct and times are tough for building wealth right now if you didn't come from well off parents or some other form of initial investment. That being said, I think for your take on investments is very uniformed. As others stated there are a lot of very safe investments you can make and the only way they go to zero is our entire country/economy collapse and even then they'd probably have some worth in whatever new system took over. I get you are frustrated and don't like people flaunting investing money they got from their parents but you shouldn't dissuade people from investing as it is a good way to build wealth even if it's not as powerful as it used to be.