Stock Market: Kicking Our Addiction
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How GameStop has revealed the weakest link in our economy
The stock market is possibly the most egregious waste of enterprise in all of human history. We use it to measure the strength of our economy when in fact it represents our economy’s weakest link.
Recently, members of the subReddit WallStreetBets have highlighted the weaknesses that make the stock market a sleeping threat to our economy. While Wallstreet bet against GameStop, the members of this forum started a campaign to push up the value of the stock, creating a scenario where hedge fund managers and investors who bet against the stock stand to lose billions.
While some sources are trying to paint them as memers or “bros” the truth is these are activists who see themselves as taking a stand against the double standards our economic system places in favor of the wealthy. Bailing them out in a crisis while simultaneously allowing every day citizens to flounder.
A Redditor recently posted:
These are concerned people taking a stand in the only way that Wall Street and our government will listen. But it also lays bare an even deeper problem facing our society. The stock market itself.
Trading stocks generates no commodities, no products, and provides no meaningful services other than those that facilitate further trading on the market. Despite this, billions of man-hours are gobbled up every year; trading, regulating, and maintaining this market all on the gamble that we can put our money in and get more out.
Here is my case against the stock market.
1. The Stock Market is a Financial Gimmick Gone Horribly Awry
The stock market is not an inseparable part of our economy, it is a 17th century invention that simply got out of control.
While investments like bonds date back to the late 1400s, the origins of the stock market date to the Dutch East India Company (DEI) who sold shares of ownership to raise capital with the agreement that share owners would receive dividends from…
