The social influences of being a trader vary from place to place.
In the West trading is only a half day anyway so there's lots of time to do other stuff.
The spectrum of professions in the financial industry put traders on the fringe as well.
The connection of money to trading is just like the connection of money to anything. Money is usually just an attendent convenience of the way things work.
Conversational settings where the discussion of professions or money are settings that are just usually passing superficial exchanges primarily for the benefit of the offerer.
Getting down to where the rubber meets the road, my guess is that what I do with profits is a lot more important than what I do with the time I spend making them. My commodities participation, I know, is most related to assuring that the particular commodity application is able to carry out its intended purpose of making less risk in that particular industry.
Wheat is the classic example for the farmer and the baker; both use commodities to guarantee their annual profits. Futures indexes do the same for other business and banking people.
The American and global free enterprise systems are designed for my ownership and participation. I own. What everyone owns builds wealth for them as that which they own adds value to the economies. All of us owners make it possible for the free enterprise system to work.
My money, there as ownership makes the economy function.
The fact that I move my wealth to best places (for me) to enhance it is just the natural outgrowth of anyone's natural desire to make the best of things and situations.
I simply like the idea that I move my capital every 6 to 8 days in equities. It is always "working" for me and working for the entity in which it is invested. I simply retrieve about 10% each time I move my money, short investment after investment.
For my intraday trading of commodity index futures, I feel that I am there opposite someone who is minimizing risk in his business or banking endeavor. It is true I sometimes wind up opposite a speculator who is making a bad guess and betting upon it.
My assumptions all the time, as I make money as a trader, are that the others with whom I participate have the same interests which are, participating in wealth building.
None of this is a zero sum game for me, because I have seen the financial system grow and grow and grow as time and rollovers pass. In 50 years or so I have seen the econmy continually exceed most prognosticators expectations by a long shot. They cannot, for some reason, see the potential of our earth continually expanding and growing at a fine pace.
I was told in grad school that wealth comes from ownership and not from the salaries of those who work for owners. I chose to be an owner instead of a worker. It turns out I change those who are working for me a little more frequently than other owners do.
Bill Gates is rarely working for me these days because owning the company he works for is not too appealing compared to those whose price varies by 10 percent net every 6 to 8 days.
My primary social influence of being a trader is related to where I put my profits in the community in which I live. My community and other places where social support and help is needed know that my family can be counted upon for time and money.
I've enjoyed, particularly, the time I have had to write on cutting edge social issues all my life. Books have a great scoial impact. Giving away copyrights and royalties has alway been possible for me alsobecause I have had market profits from trading there in abundance. Today, there is a need for more and more to be done to help out all over the place. When anyone teaches someone else to make money as well, there is a nifty ongoing social influence that comes along as well. Being a trader is a very healthy thing for any community when that trader is passing forward his knowledge skills and experience to others.
Traders are like owners we build wealth where we live and trade. We put that money into our communities.
The ET community doesn't do it to any extent but it is always possible that ET as a community might grow up someday and take what the potential of profitable trading represents and spread it around a little bit. Were ET healthy, this would be happening.
One of the neatest examples that I have ever seen is of an ex drug dealer who learned to trade and then pass it along to others. Uneducated except on the street, he is one of the greatest family guys I have known simply because he values himself and his skills and turns right around to help others get a leg up. Very cool ideed....
