No, this article falls outside the category expected. It is not destined to be some foreboding warning about the threats of excessive fiat printing, or monopoly money stock buybacks. Nor are bonds the subject to be promoted as a safe alternative. Those are all great angles, but they fail to seize the goose.
What we’re concerned with is a little different. Over the last several days it dawned on me that stocks might be unsafe from the standpoint of maintaining legal ownership. Forget about the respective firm going bankrupt, or a market downturn burning the green. Might corporations or states one day simply require shareholders to surrender their stake, or, in the former’s case, revoke your assembled stocks completely?
The idea is not as far-fetched as gullible GOPers probably believe. The State could certainly nationalize retirement and investment accounts to generate more revenue, or perhaps jack up tax rates on any sales/withdrawals. The easiest justification for an act is embodied in Social Security’s fractious position, and the move would be advertised as a question of patriotism.
Corporations on the other hand merely have to follow current social trends. They have already bent over backwards to appease the street-based terrorist group known as BMM, firing people for dissenting opinions and donating millions to “civil rights” despite their property being destroyed. How long until they bow to communist pressure and dilute or withdraw shares held by individuals who do not tow the party line?
But that’s impossible, you will say. Really? The present Supreme Court just barred churches from holding large religious services, and endorsed the undemocratic immigration power grab by an esteemed progressive. If little people stand to lose their financial holdings, would the Supreme Corporate actually care?
Not to interject with a Godwin’s Law moment, but our friend Joseph Goebbels had some great insight on this issue. Writing after his boss moved to snatch up the estates of a less-than-cooperative German monarchy, Joey said: “Real estate is the foundation of economic independence, and economic independence always furnishes a basis for political influence.”
Absolutely, and stocks are similar in nature. Will the likely Biden presidency, free of all legitimate DOJ scrutiny, defend the economic rights of the Right?
The answer, my friends, is blowing in the NASDAQ.
ECONOMIC COMMANDER 