And doesn't that imply that the state of the market should always be close to the global optimum God no. How many stocks even pay dividends any more? The ones

And doesn't that imply that the state of the market should always be close to the global optimum God no. How many stocks even pay dividends any more? The ones that don't are, strictly, "worthless", so their global optimum price should be zero (I'm simplifying; if they come with voting rights then there's a non-zero value to that, but you get the point). It's a bunch of baseball cards at a swap meet. The disconnect here is that there are agent effects. People make money selling and buying them, so they are incented to push the idea that selling and buying them is a good thing.