You're calling the stock market a Ponzi scheme?

As currently practiced, yes. Non-dividend non-voting shares might as well be pokemon cards. Their only real value lies in getting somebody else to buy them, and new money has to flow in from the outside. The question isn't "will it collapse?", it's "when?"

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marcosdumay 33 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

AFAIK, US stocks pay back mostly as buy-backs.

The fact that those are so few relative to what dividends would be is a measure of the market's (lack of) health. But it doesn't automatically make the market a Ponzi scheme.

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cmiles8 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

By your logic buying a house is a Ponzi scheme too.

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edgyquant an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Houses have real value by themselves as you can live in one. But they have been treated like a Ponzi scheme recently which is why we are in such a mess with housing

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gspr an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

My god, this is the most HN comment of the day. You do know that most normal people buy a house not to resell it at profit, but to have a place to live, right?

	▲	mitxela 35 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think most house buyers are buying it for resale value.
	▲	cmiles8 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The point is it has value and can be resold later to get your capital back. Housing tends to be a mediocre investment at best but folks do generally expect to be able to get their capital back when selling.