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Comment by FiReaNG3L | Hacker News Reader

Stock market feels like a big whole gambling machine at the moment, between QE and manipulation of this sort...

"at the moment"?

I feel the opposite. US politicians across both parties have an incentive to keep the market indices going up and to the right. And so it will since politicians have control of the money supply.

" US politicians across both parties have an incentive to keep the market indices going up and to the right"

Isn't that always the case?

And does it make a difference?

I feel like we see plenty of situations where politicians would not want to see the market crash, it still does...

I don't doubt politics plays a part, but I'm not at all sure they've got switches that work exactly as desired all the time either...

If your time horizon is more than a couple years, then it has worked. They have the ability to create money and purchase bonds, equity, and simply give companies cash if needed. And they have. The biggest variable they don’t have control over is the best value or expected future value is the USD.

Also, the invested-ness of US politicians is not just due to them owning stocks, but due to the people voting for them being invested in them by way of invested retirement funds and indirect exposure via government employee pensions.

>Also, the invested-ness of US politicians is not just due to them owning stocks, but due to the people voting for them being invested in them by way of invested retirement funds and indirect exposure via government employee pensions.

That's also a permanent thing ...

>> And so it will since politicians have control of the money supply.

The Federal reserve is criticized as "undemocratic" but that is why it is independent. Of course by the very nature a government can have sizable influnce on the economy without direct control.

> since politicians have control of the money supply.

But politicians don't have control of the money supply...

I get what you're saying but I would say that's kinda how it is, but just a question of how much it looks like gambling from moment to moment... and how much you know / is reality.

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