The stock market lives in a different reality

Do I even have to say it? 

Yes. Because it’s been topical for me lately when someone recently shared, “Cam, why aren’t you investing more?”  

I. Am. Trying... OK? 

Let’s not kid ourselves. The world is a little crazy right now. But it always has been in a way, hasn’t it?  

So back to investing. Well, my investing experience. As a millennial, I was, unfortunately, priced out of the housing market early on and decided to keep my money under my mattress for many years because, one, I needed it to support my weight (I blame a thin mattress) and, two, because I didn't understand how putting my hard-earned money in the market made sense when many of the companies listed seemed to care more about maximizing their profits than their employees’ or broader society’s well-being.  

And look, I get that people want to make money. I want to make money. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with earning and increasing your share of wealth. Barring extremes. 

But what is wrong, at least to me, is how a system that is designed to share capital seems to be unhinged to reality and the broader interests of people in the world right now.  

Take the current context: wars in the Middle East (again?) and in Eastern Europe; increasing risks related to climate challenges and disasters; widening gaps in affordability; decreasing levels of ‘happiness’, at least in Western industrialized countries, and especially among young people, despite material advances; advances in AI and in our personal lives (yay!)...but also in warfare and surveillance (boo!); the continued polarization of governments and their dogmatic political decision-making; growing impacts from climate change; and yet, the stock market today continues its upward trajectory. New records are being reached every few days, it seems, and, overall, on the promise of economic transformations that simultaneously carry warnings of yet another investment bubble. 

But here’s the rub. It’s difficult for me to reconcile the current enthusiasm in the market with the risks currently at play in the world right now, the omnipresent, increasing polycrises that are engulfing our universal appeals for predictability, stability, safety, and human-centeredness. After all, if it did measure factors like security, affordability, happiness, or optimism for the future, there is little question, to me anyway, that the stock market is not appropriately mirroring the fortunes of society, considering the social, environmental, and geopolitical headwinds that we are seeing today. And contrary to claims by some that it wasn’t designed for this task, I counter: shouldn’t it be? 

So, when someone asks me why I’m not investing more, I have to share that I legitimately do not understand how my contribution to this system is actually making the world a better place. Instead, I invest in this system because I literally cannot afford to miss out. Without satisfying alternatives, or with inaccessible ones (affordable housing, anyone?), we continue to prop up a flawed system that satisfies our limitless desire for endless growth without adequately assessing whether that system is equitable, sustainable, and reflective of the peace and happiness that many of us across the world are clamoring for, but do not yet have. 

But of course, who cares, right? Have you seen those market returns lately?