Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
Hammering the point that stocks don’t really matter or impact the lives of the majority of people. Its relevance remains the purview of the rich elite.
Highlights
id558163872
Treating the market indexes as indicators of the well-being of most people, or even those with some pension money in the market, is another instance of private commercial media treating the interests of the rich as the interests of everyone.
✏️ The propaganda machine at work 🔗 View Highlight
id558163839
the hallmark of a rich family is its well-diversified investment portfolio, including various asset classes like government bonds, real estate, and financial assets. Above all, these financial assets include corporate stock—pieces of ownership of companies.
id558163627
46.9 percent after the 2008 financial crisis. So the first point is that, in fact, less than a bare majority of U.S. households actually own any stock at all.
id558163595
Middle-class wealth is mostly tied up in physical assets, primarily the family home along with cars and other personal property
id558163567
stock ownership is “highly skewed by wealth class. The top one percent of households classified by wealth owned 40 percent of all stocks in 2016, the top 10 percent 84 percent, and the top quintile [20 percent] 93 percent.”
id558163408
“[T]he importance of real estate decreases sharply as one moves higher in the wealth hierarchy. In the ‘9 percent’ group, … real estate accounts for half of total wealth. … In the top centile [1 percent], by contrast, financial and business assets clearly predominate over real estate. In particular, shares of stock or partnerships constitute nearly the totality of the largest fortunes. … Housing is the favorite investment of the middle class and moderately well-to-do, but true wealth always consists primarily of financial and business assets.”
id558163397
“Americans are treated to a daily stock market report on the nightly news. And for some (a small minority) this report will have considerable relevance. But for the vast majority of viewers, the numbers will seem unconnected to their daily struggle to make ends meet—because they are.”
id558163373
New York Times grudgingly recognized that “riotous market swings … have virtually no impact on the income or wealth of most families. The reason: They own little or no stock. … Roughly half of all households don’t have a cent invested in stocks, whether through a 401(k) account or shares in General Electric.”
id558164070
Beyond just having piles of cash and fancy personal property, it is this that defines the real capitalist ruling class—ownership of the productive economy.