The Market Isn’t The Economy: A Snapshot From The Depression

“We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.

Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.

The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.” – Pantoum of the Great Depression – Donald Justice.

Wall Street insiders relish market troughs.

They bask sanguine in their confidence of history. Tenured pros are comforted in the belief that monetary and fiscal stimulus triggers are cocked and at the ready, reinforced in the knowledge that taxpayers without choice in the matter, will again, be the bail-out solution.

In a last irony to turn the blade in the back slowly, this group confidently takes credit for saving a system they helped to bust in the first place.

They are the strong hands who patiently await to scoop up shares when markets falter. As the smart money, these players unload inflated shares to the ‘dumb’ money or retail investors at “FOMO” or fear-of-missing-out emotional peaks.

The masses are advised to blind buy and hold. Retail investors are cajoled as “brave” if they “ride it out.” And whatever “it” is can be counted in years, even decades. Time is precious to us mere mortals. Our lives are finite; Wall Street lives on forever. The precious time it takes to break-even is ignored. Not relevant.

One of my favorite Nashville-based songwriters Drew Holcomb begins a song with a seminal line:

“Time steals every paradise I’ve been looking for.”

When Wall Street prospers, Main Street doesn’t necessarily follow a similar, prosperous path.

For example, Pew Research Center outlines that overall, American Household wealth has not fully recovered from the Great Recession. As early as 2016, median wealth of all U.S. households was $97,300; well below median wealth of $139,700 before the recession began in 2007.

Haven’t most Americans benefited from the triple-digit returns of the stock market since March 2009?

Not really.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Changes in U.S. Family Finances survey published in September 2017, median values of retirement accounts were little changed, remaining at about $60,000 in 2016. For the top income group, the rate of stock ownership, directly or indirectly, increased, continuing the trend from the 2010 survey. Stock ownership for this group was 93.6 percent in 2016.