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.

VIDEO with charts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rguHublkxCQ

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