I didn't say that the growth of the market is coming from that-- I said that the growth largely comes from profitability-- and that the companies don't necessarily care where that comes from. If they did care-- there wouldn't be so many companies outsourcing jobs to countries where they can pay ridiculously low wages. Its all about those sweet, sweet profits. However-- its nice to see that we both agree that the markets are a sign of a sick economy. People are going to be in for a rude awakening....
I've worked at Amazon. Its not as bad as folks crack it up to be-- but most folk are making base pay there (plus shift differential). Most people do not stay long enough to either move up, or receive the pay raise at the 18 month mark. A lot of long-timers are starting to leave because the incentives to perform are gone (no more free shares of stock, and no more performance based bonuses-- those suckers used to be worth up to 8% during the holidays). When they raised the base pay-- they took away pretty much every incentive to maintain good attendance and performance. Now-- people do the minimum that they can do to avoid getting fired. Morale is shit. When you factor in the price of stock... raising the pay from 12.50 to 15.. but taking away all the extras-- resulted in a pay cut for many.
Originally Posted by Grace Preston
Yeah, I don't disagree with your beliefs that "growth comes largely from profitability" and "
one of the great ways to send your stock prices soaring is with profitability." Rather, I don't believe the stock market is "only a representation of the wealthiest of those in the country."
I do believe profitability in normal times would be driving stock prices. Right now it's not. Instead people are obsessed with growth, profits be damned. Tesla is one of the poster boys. The growth stocks are frothy. We're in the middle of the biggest recession since the Great Depression (i.e. profits are down) and the stock market is booming. This will not end well IMHO.
By the way, if you were right about the wealthiest in the country owning most of the stock market, share prices should be plummeting, as they should all be dumping shares so they can pay capital gains tax at 23.8% this year, instead of the 43.4% rate they'll be paying in 2021 after Biden and a Democratic Senate take control. That's 43.4% at the federal level. In California and New York, for example, the state+federal rate will be 53%+.