Good article and I totally agree. Sadly, the run up in healthcare is largely the result of government intervention, not the other way around. More government has led to increased administrative costs, increased pricing, and horrible distortions in pricing. To get prices down would only require the government to stop being an active part in healthcare payments and pay the patients directly and let them decide what service to use.

Interesting turn of events. Thanks for pointing it out. The Euro zone continues to add to its list of problems every year. The sad fact is most of it is caused not by the Eurozone itself but by the bankrupt socialist states that comprise it and won't face reality. It's much like having a gangrene arm attached to your body. No matter how healthy you are its going to cause you whole body infinite problems until it is fixed.

LOL there is no way you can see who is on this chart. Indeed wealthy and successful businesses tend to aggregate together, but that doesn't point to any nefariousness per say. To make such an argument needs a lot more information.

Thinking that you can fix the free market through manipulation has increased throughout the Federal reserve as well as the government. In doing so they make the free market worse and distorted making it need fixing because it is not the free market that is failing us. The Federal Reserve has clearly figured out that although it's policies can't help an already distorted market, it can help the few namely TBTF banks by giving them unfair advantages in interest rates, buying assets like the stock market, and artificially manipulating the market via lies. Things can go wrong and are going wrong because the free market is being undermined and the foundation of capitalism is being undermined.

The efficient market theory works in a free market where those buying and selling take roughly the same risks. When one can borrow money at zirp or near zirp and others can't then they will buy and can handle lower rates and higher prices that make no viable sense for people who can't borrow at such rates. Likewise, when backstopped from disaster from the government they can take infinitely more risk as well as when interest rate decisions are premised on them and not the whole economy in total.

There is a reason why growth is slow and the economy is not good. That has more to do with copying Japan's policies designed to help the bankers and those in power through zirp and QE than even government bad policies. Until we reverse the disastrous course the Federal Reserve has set us on things will have a hard time getting better and will continue to turn towards the worse. The free economy doesn't need managing as much as government spending and making sure the central bank acts correctly in supporting growth and capitalism instead of insuring assets stay high to keep TBTF banks balance sheets look solvent.

The massive stimulus was designed to help banks and bankers and the rest of it is all a bunch of malarkey and everyone knows it. If it wasn't then the Fed would have offered zirp rates to every poor person paying 15% or higher interest on their credit cards. What they actually did was widen the spread so banks make more profit and gave them liquidity to buy up all the assets of those going bankrupt while helping others 0%.

Sadly their widening the spreads has lead to individuals who save end up footing the bill by losing the income they would generate with money because they can't compete with free zirpish and QE money. One can not call what the Federal Reserve is doing capitalism in any sense of the word. Now banks are pouring the free rate money into the market because they can afford to buy at zirp and expect to ask for bailouts if they lose making the market very affordable for them and the risk is affordable as well where it is not for anyone else. This is not a fair playing field and has perverted the market to no bounds.

Beware. delinking from economics and giving players unfair advantages has very adverse consequences much worse than what we are experiencing now.

Fortunately Robots aren't greedy and don't complain. That said, this pushes the need for economics to make some adjustment for humans. The sad fact is that even without robots, it is unnecessary for society to require everyone work in order for humanity to produce all the goods and services needed. As efficiency goes up the general tendency is for wealth to accumulate with the fewer and fewer and worse, for unemployment to rise. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote the Affluent Society long ago dealing with what we are slowly facing. It is interesting economically, how we will actually cope with what is happening.

In the end, the author is right. Progress tends to lead to a better future, not a worse one, whereas, conversely a lack of progress leads to a worse future. Embrace it and see how we adapt to it.

Negative interest rates are here. I feel sad for the poor countries that are the guinea pigs although it will have a global effect pointing to a global slowdown where just having the assets you have currently will be a positive outcome. Yikes.

When you artificially inflate asset prices net worth rises. However, as Gary points out. The real amount of your net worth may not come anything close to what it was or ever will be again. If you have 10 bottles of water and its worth $5 and then drink 5 and 10 years later the 5 bottles are now worth $10 you are not really better off physically although financially it may appear so. Sadly, this is the case for most households in the US. If it wasn't for technology, people would readily see that people are living in smaller houses than they used to, eat less, have less kids because they can't afford them, and have less of pretty much everything. Sad but true.

Sadly, low interest rates and negative in particular show the change in the game clearly. In low rate no growth environments, increasing debt is horrific and having assets is paramount. Sadly this discourages, not encourages spending and asset prices freeze up or fall. The Federal Reserve has stuck itself into a corner just like Japan with QE and low rates. They will never be able to reverse QE and will inevitably try to do more. They have undermined our economy by undermining capitalism.

So why is the stock market up? It is quite simple.

The market looks perfectly fine to those who can borrow at zirp or near zirp rates and if it collapses they can scream and get taxpayers to bail them out. That's why so much of trading is dominated by TBTF banks and their cronies. Sadly, continuation of this depends on continued zirpish rates meaning they don't want growth or more employment although they do want you to borrow more from them and purchase their real estate holdings and equities which they get back when the market crashes again (hopefully with more QE).

For the non-banks like you and I. Yes, the risk reward looks not very pleasant. That's because the market players aren't playing on a level playing field anymore which undermines not just asset prices but legitimacy, the market, and capitalism as a whole. Geet it, got it, good. Don't be a greatest fool and leverage yourself against those pumping up the market and playing essentially for free.

Sadly, as we see in Europe and Japan with negative rates, at this point in time people prefer keeping cash even if it pays no interest and they must pay a fee to keep it. The stronger governments and central banks try to take away all the people's capital and stick them with debt the more it encourages people to want to hold onto it no matter how bad the returns. When you have no capital left you might as well wear a big "slave to the system" cap for life, which seems to be what the central banks trying to encourage us to take out low rate loans are doing.