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When and how was this ever different?

Isn’t it how trade works since the early days of humanity? We value things, whether it’s sea shells, sheep or a legal entity in 2021 with 10,000 staff and exchange it for what we think it’s worth?

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I think the point is the horizon of payoff has previously been a lot more confined. A company was worth a multiple of earnings for example - because you were fairly confident that it would continue to earn, and if necessary could pay out dividends (and shareholders could vote to make that happen). That has gone out of whack in the past, but those were bubbles, and corrections happened.

The current environment started around the 1970s. We went from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism. We are at the end of the debt cycle and most of the worlds governments keep trying to re-inflate it instead of unwinding the mess.

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