Buying A Casino

Commentary By Ron Beasley�

There was a time that what was good for Wall Street was good for the US economy.  That changed a few years ago when Wall Street went from the symbol of the US capitalistic economy to the symbol of the US casino economy.  I first suggested here that Wall Street was no longer the US economy and that efforts to help the market would not necessarily help the main street economy.

So When the German Deutsche B�, decided to buy the New York Stock Exchange what were they buying?  Felix Salmon gets it right when he says they were buying a casino.

These developments drew headlines because they seemed to exemplify significant trends in the American economy. But look at America�s stock exchanges more closely, and there�s less to them than meets the eye. In truth, the stock market is becoming increasingly irrelevant � a trend that threatens the core principles of American capitalism.

These days a healthy stock market doesn�t mean a healthy economy, as a glance at the high unemployment rate or the low labor-market participation rate will show. The Tea Party is right about one thing: What�s good for Wall Street isn�t necessarily good for Main Street. And the Germans aren�t buying the New York Stock Exchange for its commoditized, highly competitive and ultra-low-margin stock business, but rather for its lucrative derivatives operations.

Get that, lucrative derivatives, AKA casino chips, they bought a casino.  But they did buy what the US economy has become; based on gambling on esoteric financial instruments instead of value added activities.  That combined with an empire expanding military expense guaranties failed empire.