benelli-banger
Well-known member
Most of your questions/concerns are a bullish case for stocks...fewer companies, stock buybacks, the rich wanting to stack the odds in their favor, etc...Question....
Do you think we are in a new paradigm ? I.E., the rules of the road for investing over many decades have been fundamentally altered?
Several factors that weigh on my mind are:
1) there are now fewer than ever companies to invest in.
2) stock buybacks crowds out investment....imo, we should go back to an earlier period where stock buyback was not an accepted practice and maybe even illegal?
3) trading has been fundamentally altered thru algorithisms doing the work, along with digital participation at all levels.
4)concentration of the wealth in an incredibly small portion of the population, who wield outsized influence by a factor of ??? on the very policies that affect that wealth
5) related to # 4...look at how quickly the Amazon's of the world buy up a new company that could prove to offer competition.
6) the present flood of money created out of thin air, coupled with almost a decade of quantitative easing by the fed..
I could go on, but you get the idea.....so how much should we base a decision today, on historical methodology ??
At earlier times, in the 20th century, major legislation was created to deal with these types of questions....such as significant anti trust laws...labor laws, etc.
Right now, it looks like a free for all to me, and I don't see anything sane coming out of our political process.....