pendennis wrote:
Whether "Robber Barons" ( a complete mischaracterization; you write like a Marxist sympathizer) spend the money on yachts or mansions, or the company plows back profits is immaterial.....
In modern times, Whether Donald Trump other modern business person, buys another golf course, builds a second Mar-a-Lago, etc., they're investing, not hoarding.
Money in the stock market is, for the most part, simply parked there. It produces nothing. It doesn't belong to the company, it is the way those with money trade ownership with each other. The company doesn't get that money to invest in new stuff or employees or CEOs. Only when the company sells new stock, or sells treasury shares, or uses earnings or borrows does that company have new money to invest.
When, as you say, an investor actually starts something new, or buys and puts money into an existing venture, that investor is actually pumping money into the economy.
Yet today most of the financial "news" is whether stock prices are up or down, and for every dollar used to buy stock at a higher price, the seller takes his money out. Real financial news would report whether wages are up or down, prices are up or down, production is up or down.