Third Ritchie of the day!

You lucky, lucky people you.

Stock market returns have been (by the S&P) negative over the past decade. This is true but miselading. We were having rather a boom in Dec 1999 for example.

But:

This is not chance: this is reality. Markets have run out of steam. They have no more value to add unless and until more people have access to more wealth in the world – something markets themselves cannot deliver and which those who run them resist. Put simply – those with wealth have found out there is a limit to how many new white goods, cars, music, and IT you need. And most of the rest are poor and can’t now afford houses, let alone anything else. In that case markets can’t expand.

A tad Marxian (no, not Marxist, just influenced by) don\’t you think? Capitalism will collapse of its own inherent contradictions stuff: what will the market do when there are no more markets to exploit?

But let\’s just concentrate on this part:

They have no more value to add unless and until more people have access to more wealth in the world – something markets themselves cannot deliver and which those who run them resist.

We seem to have got the horse and cart arse about tip here. Markets, that voluntary exchange thing, are the mechanism by which value is added so that there is more wealth in the world so that there is more for people to have access to.

And what have we seen in recent decades? Why, we\’ve seen the expansion of markets around the globe. What else have we seen? The largest creation of wealth that can be shared in the history of our species. And what has the result of that been? Ever more people able to share in this newly created wealth: which in turn has led to the largest fall in human poverty since Eve voluntarily exchanged an apple with Adam in return for the knowledge of rumpy pumpy.

Anyone like to post Ritchie a copy of the GCSE economics syllabus?