• _number8_@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    abolish the stock market. put these hogs on a fucking island with no natural resources but sand and salt water. set up a camera and let us watch.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      5 months ago

      It’s interesting how recent the stock market really is:

      https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/history-of-the-stock-market/

      "The first modern stock trading market was created in Amsterdam when the Dutch East India Company was the first publicly traded company. To raise capital, the company decided to sell stock and pay dividends of the shares to investors. Then in 1611, the Amsterdam stock exchange was created. For many years, the only trading activity on the exchange was trading shares of the Dutch East India Company.

      At this point, other countries began creating similar companies, and buying shares of stock was popular for investors. The excitement blinded most investors and they bought into any company that began available without investigating the organization. This resulted in financial instability, and eventually in 1720, investors became fearful and tried to sell all their shares in a hurry. No one was buying however, so the market crashed.

      . . .

      Although the first stock market began in Amsterdam in 1611, the U.S. didn’t get into the stock market game until the late 1700s. It was then that a small group of merchants made the Buttonwood Tree Agreement. This group of men met daily to buy and sell stocks and bonds, which became the origin of what we know today as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

      Although the Buttonwood traders are considered the inventors of the largest stock exchange in America, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange was America’s first stock exchange. Founded in 1790, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange had a profound impact on the city’s place in the global economy, including helping spur the development of the U.S.’s financial sectors and its expansion west."

      • normalexit@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I don’t know if my highschool education is failing me, but the US declared independence in 1776, so I feel like the US not having a stock market until the late 1700s makes a lot of sense.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is that the Dutch East India Company was under a legal charter where they could make war with and enslave whoever they wanted to as a quasi-independent entity.

        That’s what the stock market concept is based upon. Slavery and murder.

      • just_change_it@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Old enough to be the “tradition” of the united states of america, and thus never be legally challenged by the SC.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          5 months ago

          Well, when you consider that humans go back 300,000 years or so, and “civilization”, such as it is, goes back 10,000 - 12,000 years, 500 years is really not much at all.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      The problem is that a bunch of the hogs are our retirement funds.

      We need to remove the middle-men from the equation and institute guaranteed basic income before we can change it.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It did serve a purpose. But like all money and corporation things we’ve let the wealthy run away with it.

    • Econgrad@lemmings.world
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      5 months ago

      You should absolutely not abolish the stock market because it’s the single way most average people have to becoming wealthy. What you should do is change how it operates. Here’s a novel idea I’ve had for a long time.

      Make more and more companies worker co-ops going forward by incentivizing them the attacks credits and local government health in getting them started. Preserve 75% of the company for the people who actually work there which is what makes it a worker’s co-op.

      Reserve 25% of the company for speculation on Wall Street and to raise capital if they need to.

      This way you can have sort of a socialist economy that avoids abuses and a stock market at the same time that provides liquidity and efficiency.