[kibwen]

It's easy to see that with an unbounded amount of wealth, a single actor can keep a market irrational for an unbounded amount of time. Even with realistic (finite) amounts of wealth, this actor can keep a market irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

In general, markets can only work when people are averse to the loss of money, thereby introducing a feedback mechanism. And people are only averse to the loss of money when that has material consequences for their well-being. For the ultra-wealthy today, the marginal value of every additional dollar (or million dollars) is essentially zero, so the self-balancing properties of markets are prevented from doing their job properly, namely the efficient allocation of resources.

[cyberjerkXX]

Your statement is a general misunderstanding of how markets work. The role of the market is not to be self balanced but to facilitate trade. Markets are voluntary exchanges between individuals and organizations. Markets work because people are ultimately the best at deciding their needs and wants during a specific time.

[kibwen]

No, it's not strictly voluntary, because the existence of a market sets a price for a product, and materially differing from that price either puts you at a disadvantage (deprives you of voluntary trading partners) or creates opportunities for arbitrage (disadvantaging those who would otherwise voluntarily trade exclusively with you). And if your competitor has a massive pre-existing wealth advantage, they'll happily eat the loss and undercut you until you're out of business. This produces worse outcomes in the long run.