Our Gambling Economy

Why is the stock market allowed?  Seriously; why do we allow so-called “investors” manipulate everything about our economy?  On the one hand it's international legalized gambling that not only affects the livelihoods of the investors, but potentially hundreds of millions if not billions of people in the world and on the other hand it's used for currency manipulation and strong-arming new entries to the market into complying with the established market (or preventing entry altogether).  I wouldn't call that a free market so much as a market controlled tightly by the very people who the regulations are supposed to protect everyone else from.  

Do you realize that “speculators” can lie, cheat and manipulate the perception of the value of existing and future goods?  Some ultra-wealthy guys in New York can basically decide what percentage of Americans can afford to drive to work and buy bacon each month.  The immediate repercussions of decisions made by “stockholders” (not to be confused with “stakeholders”) can affect all the customers of a bank, or all the employees of a local business bought out by a larger company.

“Well, Tom.  You see, it’s the corporate world.  You’ve worked for a corporation for how long?  You know that’s how the corporate world works.” - some asshole I used to work with explaining how one should accept without complaint when your employer renegs your employment agreement to boost shareholder dividends.

OF COURSE I fucking know how the corporate world works.  (What a condescending prick that coworker was.)  Why the fuck should I accept the status quo?  I should be motivated by stagnant wages and loss of purchasing power because that's the way it is??? Should we accept the tradition of female genital mutilation just because “Well, that’s how they've always done it?  That’s just how their culture works!”  Fuck. That.

The people who live in your community, the business owners that rely on the income of your neighbors to stay in business, the children of the workers attending local schools, the local school which relies on the property taxes of local families, the churches that rely on donations from those same families?  ALL. Fucking. Stakeholders. To a corporation, whatever happens to them are just "negative externalities."

But as long the CEO fired for incompetence at HewlettPackard can buy another fucking yacht (or ten)… I guess it’s okay if a community or dozen are gutted.  I’ll be rich like that someday.  Gonna put my money on Ted Cruz to help me get there.