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What gets me the most is how much everyone buys into the massive ponzi scheme that is the stock market. Look, first you have to realize that most people and ent

What gets me the most is how much everyone buys into the massive ponzi scheme that is the stock market. Look, first you have to realize that most people and entities on the market are only a small blip on the graph compared to the big ones. The central banks, the banks that make up the central banks, and the various offshoot parasitical entities such as financial manipulation agencies and suprainternational corporations, are the real players in the market. Sure, there are ups and downs, and a decent broker here or an ok hedge fund there may get you a reasonable return during the good years. That's not the point though. The real point is that it is a massive ponzi scheme that feeds off of the misery and ineptness of the small players, not only that, but the market itself is manipulated as a way to gain much more substantial power in areas such as actual land ownership and commodities. It's a cycle. Eventually, a few big players who know they have the ability to move entire markets, on a downturn cut losses and on the upturn amplify gains, do so, and then use their gains to grab exponentially more wealth, and power, enabling them to do it even better next time. It's generally the classic Rothschild-Waterloo move. Nathan Rothschild heard back about Waterloo before even the British gov, caused a panic based off his reputation to get the market to plummet, and then turned around and bought it all up for pennies on the dollar. Market manipulation based on secret knowledge the rest of the market didn't have. Then of course my other favourite example is the crash of 1907, (also a perfect example of the power elite rewriting history) The way they teach it is that United Copper was the instigator of the crash and JP Morgan was the generous saviour of the day, but the reality is much different. The panic really didn't kick off until Knickerbocker crumpled... and right as it started to, Morgan was the one who removed lines of credit to Knickerbocker in the first place! They were competitors, and Morgan got rid of them. Then the Treasury intervened and suspended obligatory payments in the large Chicago and NY banks and that was that, the crash was inevitable at that point. Despite that fact, the crash was used to claim that a lack of a central bank was the problem (it wasn't), the National Monetary Commission was formed, which then toured Europe for insight into "proper banking methods". They came back, had the Jekyll island meeting, and shortly after proposed the Aldrich plan, which got shot down because the public was up in arms against the "money trusts". The big bankers then pushed the Aldrich plan with a new name, aka the Federal Reserve Act, financed some groups to tout how much it was needed while pretending to hate it, and then got it passed on December 23 and signed by Woodrow Wilson the same day! I could go on about the reasons why I think it was one of the worst things to ever have happened to the US, especially as it has spectacularly failed in its charge to prevent other crashes/panics, but what are the solutions? I think we need to nationalize the federal reserve, and put control of monetary policy back under the congress where it constitutionally belongs. Until then, we will continue to see Libor scandals, bailouts, hidden bailouts, crashes and fluctuations. We must address the fundamental problems of our economy before we can even begin to address the ponzi scheme that is the stock market. edit: To keep it more on topic, I would be interested in seeing papers on the relationship between the Fed and the stock market, which I guess would be centred around interests rates, the federal funds rate, and dollar exchange rates on foreign markets.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> I could go on about the reasons why I think it was one of the worst things to ever have happened to the US, especially as it has spectacularly failed in its charge to prevent other crashes/panics... It didn't prevent 1929. It didn't prevent 2008. But nothing else in the time since has been on the level of 1907, let alone 1879. Two crashes in a century, instead of an average of one real crash every 7 years or so, is still a massive improvement.
sytelus 11y ago
You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode. Yes, few handful of private firms like Blackrock, PIMCO etc have huge control over stock market. They have trillions of dollars to play with (mostly funded by public through 401Ks). They can make or break market by inducing fear or happiness with a small chunk of selloff or buyoff anytime they wish. Yes, stock of the company has little correlation with actual returns (aka dividends) and it's all about speculating. Stock market is in essence legally sanctioned casino and unfortunately few of the only alternatives for investment for general public who can't start their own companies. What's the solution? It's actually very simple. Heavily tax any short term gains. Something like 90% if you sell in 1st year, 45% if 2nd year and so on. Make dividend income completely tax free. This will force people to use stocks as actual investment and companies to actually share earnings with shareholder (who are by definition partial owner). This can put an end to lot of speculation because your gains would simply be taken away if you do so. It might even end boom bust cycles because there won't be massive sell offs to cash out or algorithm day trading. It will give security to companies so they don't have to live in constant fear of stock tanking next quarter just because it happened to be little bad.
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  Number one thing I can think of is to figure out a way to prevent HFT algorithms. Put a 1 second timer on and put taxes on those trades, to prevent the whole "my fiber line is .2 ms faster to NY than yours" trading arbitrage. The more fundamental issue of corruption at every level though is still not addressed by this. "You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode." I respect all the points you have made except for this one. I very clearly stated things that are fact based, with some speculation and broad-generalization, but to then equate that with "edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode" is very frustrating to see. I understand the trepidation of even coming close to "conspiracy theory" subjects for fear of being somehow tainted by the crazy, but the history of the world was built on conspiracy, so to ignore the factual and everyday conspiracy that is verifiable under the banner of lumping it in with the crazier stuff is doing your own ability to critically think about a subject a disservice. Again, I understand the reaction, but I think it is one we need to guard against, as it is some strange form of logical fallacy that combines ad hominem and strawman. To encase my point, did you know that the CIA really pushed the term "conspiracy theory" as a discrediting technique in 67 after outcry grew that the Warren Commission didn't do it's job? (which it didn't..). "2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments. 3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested: a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation. b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories." http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy.jpg http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CI... http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy2.jpg http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CI...

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

> I could go on about the reasons why I think it was one of the worst things to ever have happened to the US, especially as it has spectacularly failed in its charge to prevent other crashes/panics... It didn't prevent 1929. It didn't prevent 2008. But nothing else in the time since has been on the level of 1907, let alone 1879. Two crashes in a century, instead of an average of one real crash every 7 years or so, is still a massive improvement.

sytelus 11y ago

You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode. Yes, few handful of private firms like Blackrock, PIMCO etc have huge control over stock market. They have trillions of dollars to play with (mostly funded by public through 401Ks). They can make or break market by inducing fear or happiness with a small chunk of selloff or buyoff anytime they wish. Yes, stock of the company has little correlation with actual returns (aka dividends) and it's all about speculating. Stock market is in essence legally sanctioned casino and unfortunately few of the only alternatives for investment for general public who can't start their own companies. What's the solution? It's actually very simple. Heavily tax any short term gains. Something like 90% if you sell in 1st year, 45% if 2nd year and so on. Make dividend income completely tax free. This will force people to use stocks as actual investment and companies to actually share earnings with shareholder (who are by definition partial owner). This can put an end to lot of speculation because your gains would simply be taken away if you do so. It might even end boom bust cycles because there won't be massive sell offs to cash out or algorithm day trading. It will give security to companies so they don't have to live in constant fear of stock tanking next quarter just because it happened to be little bad.

arca_vorago 11y ago
Number one thing I can think of is to figure out a way to prevent HFT algorithms. Put a 1 second timer on and put taxes on those trades, to prevent the whole "my fiber line is .2 ms faster to NY than yours" trading arbitrage. The more fundamental issue of corruption at every level though is still not addressed by this. "You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode." I respect all the points you have made except for this one. I very clearly stated things that are fact based, with some speculation and broad-generalization, but to then equate that with "edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode" is very frustrating to see. I understand the trepidation of even coming close to "conspiracy theory" subjects for fear of being somehow tainted by the crazy, but the history of the world was built on conspiracy, so to ignore the factual and everyday conspiracy that is verifiable under the banner of lumping it in with the crazier stuff is doing your own ability to critically think about a subject a disservice. Again, I understand the reaction, but I think it is one we need to guard against, as it is some strange form of logical fallacy that combines ad hominem and strawman. To encase my point, did you know that the CIA really pushed the term "conspiracy theory" as a discrediting technique in 67 after outcry grew that the Warren Commission didn't do it's job? (which it didn't..). "2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments. 3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested: a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation. b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories." http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy.jpg http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CI... http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy2.jpg http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CI...