A Fitting End to a Massively Corrupt Society
Despite the greatest geopolitical risks in human history, *some* global stock markets remain magically suspended near all time highs. How can that be?
Simple - Every gimmick and contrivance known to man has been used to maintain this illusion. On Wall Street, they say "Price is truth", which is just a shorter way of saying that bonus time is only a few months away. Clearly that unfounded mentality has been adopted along the way, by this entire corrupt society, because as long as the Dow continues to levitate by any means necessary, everything else is allowed to fall apart in the meantime - including the economy, the very thing that the Dow was supposed to represent.
FULL CASINO: RENT-SEEKING TO THE MAXIMUM
The primary reason the stock market exists, in theory, is to allow companies to raise capital. They do this via primary (IPO) and secondary stock offerings. The stock market represents the publicly traded venue for raising capital. Private companies, by contrast, raise money directly from large investors, which is considered a less liquid approach, since the issued shares are not traded on an exchange. All well and good, except according to Vanguard founder John Bogle, there is 200x more speculation than investment taking place in the stock market. Meaning that the primary activity of stock markets is merely churning stock from one speculator to the next in a zero sum game. It's the ultimate form of rent seeking - zero value add to the economy.
John Bogle:
"Is it really fair for gamblers on Wall Street to pay a 15 percent rate when they make a winning investment, and an honest working person — a bricklayer for example — may pay an equal or higher tax on their wages than a gambler? That's absolute absurdity."
What's really absurd, is that the bricklayer is likely paying twice as high a tax rate as Wall Street's "Carried interest" loophole.
Worshipping Markets
This all gets back to the point of this post: the corrupt pre-occupation with instant gratification and getting-rich-quick has reached its logical extreme. Now, the casino is more important than the economy itself. As long as the illusional "prices" in the casino are going up, by any contrivance necessary, then the soundness of the underlying economy is an easily ignored concern.
Markets in general are not a panacea. They are ultimately manipulated and controlled by human beings (Russian programmers, and Central Banks) just like every other man made device. At best they are a tool that if used properly can achieve a primary objective. However, markets themselves are merely a means to an end. When they become the end itself, then the end takes care of itself.
