LETTER: Economics and the stock market

It was with great interest that I read James Moldenhauer’s recent letter about how the stock market is not related to economics. As a person who has made a good living (I was once director of marketing for a Fortune 500 company) trading stocks, I would beg to differ.

Economics drives the market, and the market provides equity for businesses, i.e. support for the economy by creating jobs, etc. Building an economy without stocks is like attempting to build a house without a hammer.

I traded my first stock with my high school economics teacher while we were in the middle of President Lyndon Johnson’s guns and butter program. My teacher told us that those measures would cause inflation that would take 20 years to wring out. He was wrong. It took only 18.

Just recently, hundreds of billions have been raised to fund AI and other associated businesses. It is far too early to determine the economic impact, but ignore it at your own peril. If Mr. Moldenhauer somehow got an economics degree without understanding the role of the stock market in a free market economy, I would be asking for a refund.