>keep pumping the same money every month for retirement into the same 500 companies (or whatever an index is funding) without consequence to their actions, so t

>keep pumping the same money every month for retirement into the same 500 companies (or whatever an index is funding) without consequence to their actions, so they're never punished. When a buyer buys a stock, they are not giving money to the business. Als, businesses get removed from the SP500 all the time: https://www.bankrate.com/investing/s-p-500-stocks-list-of-additions/ https://www.bankrate.com/investing/s-p-500-stocks-list-of-ad... They generally have to perform (profit, profit margin, revenue growth, market share growth, political influence growth, etc), and the higher the performance, the more their shares are worth (obviously).