A Boring Dystopia

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As US stock market hits new highs, 2 of 3 Americans are cutting back on spending, survey shows (apnews.com)

submitted 1 day ago by FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence declined slightly this month as gas prices stayed high and inflation remained elevated, a sharp contrast to soaring stock prices hover near record levels.

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index slipped 0.7 points to 93.1 in May, the first decline after three months of gains. The measure hasn’t fallen as much this year as other gauges of consumer attitudes, but it has been stuck at a low level since the pandemic. Before COVID-19, it regularly reached 130.

A separate gauge of consumer sentiment released last week by the University of Michigan fell to a record low this month. Soaring gas and food costs have worsened inflation that is outpacing the average growth in paychecks, reducing most Americans’ purchasing power. Americans have soured on President Trump’s economic policies, polls show, potentially creating problems for Republicans heading into the midterm elections.

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[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Tbf a lot of it is ordinary people with their 401ks or ETF purchases. Like a very big percentage. That creates the baseline demand, which means the line is always going up when things are good.

Then the ultra rich and the gamblers make bets on which companies beat that constantly rising line.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, I've seen that in the UK (were I worked in Finance) and The Netherlands were both governments changed the legislation to make any Retirement Savings above a certain point have to go via Retirement Funds (which mostly ended up in the stockmarket) in order for that money not to be taxed - all that money was propping up the stock market, paying for some serious shenanigans in the Funds part of the Industry (like Fund Managers sending tons of money to Investment Banks in the form of things like trading fees and later moving to highly paid positions in said Investment Banks) and pretty much being the part of the market regularly fleeced by big professional players with advantages such as insider info, which was mainly Investment Banking Prop Trading desks (anybody who thinks the Chinese Walls between Client Desks and Prop Desks actually works have never worked in that side of the Industry, actually get paid to hold and spread such beliefs and/or still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy).

Some people who do check how much money is their Retirement Fund worth complain that their Retirement Fund levels have barelly gone up faster than the money they put in but most people are only going to notice just how seriously screwed they're being by that whole system in a couple of decades when they try to retire, which is why politicians and their ("thankful", very, very materially "thankful") mates in Finance are getting away with it.

In summary, Retirement Funds (and, I assume the US equivalent: 401k) not only prop-up stock markets because they're a huge slice of the saved wealth from regular people, they are also the prime sheep in the markets that get regularly fleeced by the Finance Industry and people are only going to notice what's happenned decades from now, by which time everybody involved in the scam will have walked away very rich.

This is probably one of the main pathways via which the wealthy (and quite a lot of parasites) plunder the wealth of the Middle Class at levels which are far beyond anything since the late XIX and early XX centuries.

I didn't mention any of this in my previous post because it would just add and extra dimension and hence confusion to the point I was making, but I definitelly have a very strong insight (or so I like to think) on the subject.