The Stock Market and its Valuation

In addition to the potential of dividends, being bought out in a take-over, or having the original company buy back some stock, some stocks will give you some form of limited voting power on the direction of the company.

Unfortunately I have to agree though, the stock market feels more and more like an abstracted financial game. Instead of direct investments in projects, there's stocks, derivatives (bets how a stock will go), broken mortgages packaged into "securities", and other strange financial instruments. I forget what % of trading these days is derivatives and currencies but it's quite substantial.

Still, you're wrong to say "most don't win." Most people, just investing in a balanced way, have been able to win pretty well. You might argue they won't win in the future, for whatever reason.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

So then where should one be putting their money these days?

There's nowhere I can't reach.