[dhosek]

A quick google says that 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not. There will be some fraction of that 47% who have their own businesses, but I’m guessing that these would be people at the bottom end of the business scale. Would it really be fair to call the guys driving a truck through the alleys collecting crap metal capital owners who would live in a utopia?

The same article that cites the 53% number also says that the top 10% of income earners own 70% of the stock market. That doesn’t really sound like a recipe for utopia.

[jkhanlar]

https://youtu.be/FID0BLkZXuY?t=2058s

> 34:24 "Markets are efficient because of active managers setting the prices of securities, firms like Citadel, firms like Fidel.....lity (Fidelity) [...] trying to drive the value of companies towards where we think they should be valued." - Kenneth Cordelle Griffin, Citadel Securities, November 2023

I thought Amazon was a public company, not private, and since supply and demand is dead and real price discovery is gone, that unless it becomes a private company it likely will not survive, unless there are enough retail investors to DRS directly register shares in their name so that DTCC (Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation) and Cede & Co do not hold all the assets for retail in street name to then bankrupt and collect all the assets leaving retail investors holding worthless securities, but I don't see that Amazon is private? Maybe I missed something that happened and it's a private company now?

[JumpCrisscross]

> thought Amazon was a public company, not private

Parks, libraries and military bases are publicly owned. Amazon is a private company whose shares are publicly traded.

> since supply and demand is dead

This is wrong.

> so that DTCC (Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation) and Cede & Co do not hold all the assets for retail in street name to then bankrupt and collect all the assets

This is nonsense. (For starters, not how bankruptcy works.)

> Maybe I missed something

Mankiw’s Principles of Economics is a well-regarded introductory text [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_Economics_(Man...

[JumpCrisscross]

> 53% of Americans own publicly traded stock, but that means that 47% do not

Does that include 401(k)s and pensions?

[dhosek]

Yes. 401(k)s but not pensions. The latter are defined benefit programs where participants are not responsible for making investment decisions.

[foolofat00k]

Very probably, yes. I'd be shocked if more than 60% of Americans even have a 401k/pension, let alone one with any meaningful sum invested.

[int_19h]

And for most Americans who own publicly traded stock, the income that is derived from it is supplemental, not primary.

You're not really a full-on capitalist unless you can stop working and still have sufficient income derived from economic rent collected from somebody else who is working to sustain you in perpetuity.