The US stock market is in "the mother of all bubbles", with the market capitalization of publicly traded companies at 206% of GDP. This is higher than the dot-com bubble of 2000, and even the peak of the crash of 1929. Meanwhile, just 25 companies make up over half of the weight of the S&P 500, and the Magnificent 7 Big Tech monopolies are 35% of the market cap of the index. However, the US economy was built upon this financial house of cards, and politicians are profiting from it. Ben Norton explains the dangers.
VIDEO with charts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rguHublkxCQ
Topics
0:00 American exceptionalism
0:53 US stock market is over 60% of world
1:16 USA is 74% of MSCI World Index
2:10 Top 25 companies in world
3:29 Exorbitant privilege of US dollar
4:59 S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices
6:07 Magnificent 7
6:50 Just 25 companies make up 50.3% of S&P 500
8:26 Tesla is insanely overvalued
12:03 Big US companies are really financial firms
13:11 How to measure a bubble
14:15 Buffett Indicator (market cap to GDP)
15:57 Public & private equities to GDP
17:00 How the US government inflated the bubble
21:10 Richest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks
22:23 Warren Buffett's warnings
23:56 Berkshire Hathaway dumps stocks
26:32 Jeff Bezos sells Amazon shares
27:22 Mark Zuckerberg sells Meta stocks
27:40 Elon Musk sold Tesla shares
28:08 The "greatest bubble in human history"
30:27 Alan Greenspan and "irrational exuberance"
31:16 Fears of "pent-up exuberance"
32:19 P/E ratios
33:41 Irrational investing
34:54 Donald Trump's tax cuts help the rich
37:54 Trump and Ronald Reagan
39:04 Trickle-down economics
41:16 Wall Street fills Trump's cabinet
42:02 Financialization of US economy
43:44 Will Trump reverse de-industrialization?
45:38 Real estate & homelessness
46:38 US dollar
47:34 Wall Street vs Main Street
49:06 Outro
