Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis.
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Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis.
I'm just... shook.
"Girl? You live like this?"
The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer public companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
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Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis.
I'm just... shook.
"Girl? You live like this?"
The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer public companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
The whole pretext is that public companies provide the capital that allow companies to take on large projects and make money. This makes their stock worth owning since they will give you some of the profit in the form of a dividend.
This description of markets is so quaint and out of line with what is really going on that when I say it people don't respond, they just start hyperventilating and laughing.
But, come on! Isn't that supposed to be the whole point?
I'm so disappointed.
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Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis.
I'm just... shook.
"Girl? You live like this?"
The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer public companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
@futurebird When I was working on my MBA, one of the most difficult classes for me was the one where we were learning about annual reports, balance sheets, company valuations, etc. I happened to have been friends with the professor beforehand, and when i mentioned I was having difficulty, she said, "Yes, I expected that. People like you often do. You're very analytical. You want 2 + 2 to always equal 4." It turns out that they make 2+ 2 equal whatever the hell they feel like, and just use accounting obfuscation to justify it.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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@futurebird When I was working on my MBA, one of the most difficult classes for me was the one where we were learning about annual reports, balance sheets, company valuations, etc. I happened to have been friends with the professor beforehand, and when i mentioned I was having difficulty, she said, "Yes, I expected that. People like you often do. You're very analytical. You want 2 + 2 to always equal 4." It turns out that they make 2+ 2 equal whatever the hell they feel like, and just use accounting obfuscation to justify it.
@SKleefeld @futurebird So...lying? Institutionalized lying?
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@SKleefeld @futurebird So...lying? Institutionalized lying?
@vikxin @futurebird Yup.
In another class, we studied the Enron scandal as that was still recent-ish. The professor flatly said the big lesson companies took from it was: always have a designated fall guy. Literally. Not "be more ethical" or even "cover your tracks better" but "make sure to have someone just below the C-suite execs to take the blame if/when your illegalities are discovered."
I was a cynic before, but studying business showed me a whole new depth of how blatantly corrupt the business world is. And that was nearly 20 years ago; I'm sure it's worse now.
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The whole pretext is that public companies provide the capital that allow companies to take on large projects and make money. This makes their stock worth owning since they will give you some of the profit in the form of a dividend.
This description of markets is so quaint and out of line with what is really going on that when I say it people don't respond, they just start hyperventilating and laughing.
But, come on! Isn't that supposed to be the whole point?
I'm so disappointed.
@futurebird It's not made sense to me either.
As a company, I sell stock once, and in return I need to pay a form a sort of interest payment, a dividend, paid in perpetuity, with a crap ton of rules and regulations now guiding my operations? It's not a loan or a bond, but still a form of debt. I got the cash infusion one,
It makes zero for most corporations except for the people who become rich off the process. Obligations for a cash infusion that may have occurred a generation ago, or more.
It makes sense for an operation with massive infastructure needs, where the capital needs are huge. Shipping, railroads, electricity etc. For a company with mostly IP? Someone got rich.
It is a leash on a corporation, to allow an outsider to profit from someone else's work effort.
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@futurebird It's not made sense to me either.
As a company, I sell stock once, and in return I need to pay a form a sort of interest payment, a dividend, paid in perpetuity, with a crap ton of rules and regulations now guiding my operations? It's not a loan or a bond, but still a form of debt. I got the cash infusion one,
It makes zero for most corporations except for the people who become rich off the process. Obligations for a cash infusion that may have occurred a generation ago, or more.
It makes sense for an operation with massive infastructure needs, where the capital needs are huge. Shipping, railroads, electricity etc. For a company with mostly IP? Someone got rich.
It is a leash on a corporation, to allow an outsider to profit from someone else's work effort.
Consider a tax on speculative gains that starts high and decreases the longer you hold a stock. All the way to zero. (and to be nice it’d only be on gains over some fat threshold say 100k)
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Ever since I decided I should "learn more about the stock market" I've been having a rolling, ongoing multi-week crisis.
I'm just... shook.
"Girl? You live like this?"
The most interesting thing I've learned is how there are fewer public companies on the market. This is also responsible for market inflation. Everyone seems to nod and agree that ideally a market shouldn't be a speculative thing, but based on the value the companies generate, but everyone vested benefits from dislocation.
@futurebird I remember learning in high school economics that the stock market ran on "confidence" and have forever remained shook.
