Mark

The takeaway here is that elites are encouraging more and more retail investors to enter financial markets in order to act as momentum pumps and exit liquidity. In this sense, retail investors take their labour income and transfer it to elites. The logic of this loop is that elite wealth grows at the expense of labour's income.

2/ This week’s newsletter has a common thread: stolen futures. The namesake is in reference to my latest podcast episode, where I sat down with author David Z. Morris to talk about his book Stealing the Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia. Morris’ argument is that fraudulent and performative elitism steals the political and economic futures from democracy, as told through his case study on SBF and FTX. I saw the same vibe when writing my recent essays as well. Data shows that the vast majority of active retail investors see sub-optimal outcomes. The featured chart above shows how only 35% of day traders have active trades after 1 year and that drops to 7% after 5 years. They have their financial futures stolen from them because of gaslighting and elite exploitation not dissimilar from Morris’ descriptions. The emergence of perpetual futures in traditional finance certainly could also play on a pun of “stolen futures”. These new instruments emerged in shady crypto from a formerly convicted criminal Arthur Hayes (pardoned by Trump). I explained the evolution from crypto to high FA-nance using Hayes’ own account which offered unique insight. I also wrote a short blurb in reaction to a neoliberal’s misunderstanding of the welfare state’s history. I use that 19th century history lesson to demonstrate how the current neoliberal agenda to dismantle the welfare (and developmental) state will also steal a more stable and prosperous future. Finally, in my Furthermore section I catalogued some of the most insightful reads and listens. I spotlighted 3 pieces in economics, tech, and history. American economist Perry Mehrling unfortunately passed away this past month. His 2012 conference paper on the inherent hierarchy of money is worthwhile to read. Kyle Harrison’s recent essay McDonaldization of Venture Capital was a great breakdown of the current state of venture capital and how its evolving away from how we conventionally thought about it towards, for lack of a better term, slop. Then I review Stephen Meardon’s 2024 chapter on 19th century Henry C. Carey’s monetary theory and show how it has a lot of overlap with MMT. Each spotlighted piece reflects a potential stolen future. If Mehrling’s insights were more absorbed, would economics be better? If venture capital was not McDonaldizing, would tech be better? If Carey’s monetary insights were institutionalized, would have 20th century economic history turned out differently? ryanresearch.substack.com/p/…