It's Hawking, not Hawkins, you big dummy.

All conspiracy theorists are only stating facts, so you aren't alone there. That those facts are entirely irrelevant and taken out of context is immaterial.

People have been using brokers to buy shares since the stock market began. All brokers are regulated by FINRA and the SEC. You're heavily implying that these "things to be aware of" are material, when in fact they are not. Owning shares through a broker is just as safe as doing the work to buy them yourself. It's definitely not "problematic, to say the least". Your technicalities are immaterial and you're just spreading FUD. An example of your baseless FUD that you are claiming as "fact".

>Those shares, if not in your own name, are are, very, very, very, very likely, being used against you in convoluted schemes similar to 2008 Housing Derivative Meltdown

I'm sure you'll have some "brilliant" reply with a list of some more meaningless technicalities and baseless claims like the one above, but the crux of the matter is that none of your claims mean anything. You're just noise, like all of the pundits predicting the next crash. Good investors tune out noise. Which I will now do to you.

Anyone reading this can check out /r/bogleheads if you want examples of what good investing looks like and why it's wise to ignore this type of noise.

I'd recommend buying index funds and ignoring the conspiracy theories, but you do you.

Stocks are still an excellent long term inflation hedge.

It's like Superman 3

How else are you going to get to the top of the slide?