[xk_id]

This is long, but trust me when I say, that about halfway through, it will answer your question fully.

https://www.newstatesman.com/business/economics/2024/02/the-...

This gist of it is that central banks tried to stimulate investment in the economy by purchasing bonds, which lowered their yields and made them unattractive to institutional investors. As a result, institutional investors had no choice but to use the QE printed money to invest in stocks instead. This greatly repressed the risk in the stock market, while decoupling it from profits, because for a long time “numbers would only go up”.

Separately, the repressed borrowing costs (another intended effect of QE) enabled big tech to consolidate their monopolies, creating the attention harvesting platforms of today. Alongside inequality also being amplified by QE, those platforms started to favour rage baiting.

The combination of high risk appetite + algorithmic promotion of outrage enabled a kind of business model which is based on nothing except ridiculous dreams. Elon and his Tesla are therefore the quintessential creatures of the era.