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.
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
