The following article probably explained why the masses are not enjoying more jobs and higher wages despite the bull run of stock markets. We are now seeing the social unrest in several countries around the world – France, Lebanon, Chile, Hong Kong and Spain.
“The one constant across the media-political spectrum is an unblinking focus on the stock market as a barometer of the national economy: every major media outlet from the New York Times to Fox News prominently displays stock market action, and TV news anchors’ expressions reflect the media’s emotional promotion of the market as the end all to be all: if stocks rose, the anchors are smiling and chirpy, and if the market fell then their expressions are downcast and dour.
This cheerleading of the stock market is based on an implicit assumption that the rising stock market raises all boats: a rising market is assumed to reflect an expansion of sales and profits that trickle down to the masses in higher wages, more jobs and rising 401K retirement accounts.
The reality is starkly different: the vast majority of the gains generated by a rising stock market flow to the top 10% households who own 93% of all financial assets, and the gains within the top 10% are highly concentrated in the top .01% of financiers, super-wealthy families and corporate managers who have reaped the vast majority of the past decade of stock market gains. The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017 and 2018 and 2019. America’s richest 1% now own as much wealth as the middle and lower classes combined…As my friend Adam T recently observed : when we cheer the rising stock market, we’re celebrating the super-rich getting even richer. Why are we celebrating an unprecedented widening of wealth inequality that erodes democracy (because the super-wealthy buy political influence) and the social contract (as the vast majority of wealth and power flow to the top .01%)?
Soaring wealth inequality is extremely destabilizing politically, socially and economically : much of the social unrest breaking out around the world can be traced to the political, social and financial disenfranchisement of the masses by super-wealthy elites.
Economically, soaring inequality concentrates and capital and power in the hands of the few, creating fertile ground for cartels and monopolies which raise costs without generating better services or more jobs. This dynamic is easily visible in the US.
The US only pretends to have free markets : From plane tickets to cellphone bills, monopoly power costs American consumers billions of dollars a year. Politically, the 90% who are losing ground seek political redress, generating tension in a political system dominated by the super-wealthy. Since the political machinery is controlled by the elite, the bottom 90%’s efforts to gain political redress will fail: Medicare for All (to take one example of many) is just an expansion of rapacious sickcare cartels that further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.”
– Charles Hugh Smith.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/11/stock-market-cheerleading-why-do-we.html
In James 5:1-5, it is mentioned that God will make right this injustice of exploiting the poor workers by the wealthy in the last days. Will this development be a sign of the coming economic collapse ? Hong Kong, being one of the world’s major seaports cum financial centers, will be among those who make their living by the sea and will weep when the Babylonian system is destroyed and all wealth is destroyed. Rev 18:17.