brokers having a meltdown since news came out about the withdrawal of troops from Syria. The Prison "Industrial" complex and the MIC drive the goons at Wall St. Even the slightest movement of military pull-back is seen as a threat and skittish brokers run for the hills and stocks take a nose-dive. It is said that the stock-market is just an elaborate Ponzi scheme anyway. Stocks based on conning others to buy worthless sht.

The bonuses being handed out by Morgan Stanley could be among the most generous in the bulge bracket set. That's because Morgan's shares have outperformed their peers...

The Hedge Fund Group performed the worst at Morgan Stanley, but they are not subject to the same ethics as the the other divisions of the banking group.

After rising for two consecutive years, most analysts expect the bonus pool for bankers to shrink in 2019 (assuming the economy does begin slouching toward a recession). Because unfortunately for bankers, they are accountable to the shareholding public (i.e. Vanguard, Fidelity and BlackRock). Hedge funds, on the other hand, are only accountable to the remaining LPs still gullible enough to pay 2-and-20 for the privilege of having some of the world's most "sophisticated" investors lose their money.

If I'm reading that right, that is. That sort of institutional, counter-intuitive evil got normalized in 2009, however, so there's no surprise here.

Every time a market seriously crashes some economist does the post mortem. It's always the same, the net result is a massive wealth re-distribution from the middle class retirement accounts to the oligarchs. Why is that? Well, you have to look at the cash-in cash-out model. The cash-in has been the retirement funds, 401K etc. The cash out has been the wealthiest Americans who own vast amounts of stock, and sell it on a regular basis to fund their life style. The markets really are a Ponzi scheme coupled with a gambling casino. The total market wealth as measured by shares multiplied by stock price is a fantasy. There is no way that some persons could ever step up to the plate and buy those stocks so that existing owners can cash out, now or in the future. It is all speculation, essentially investing in derivatives. People around town tell me that they have lost all their gains for the year. Yeah, right, they actually have zero real gains unless they sell their stock. This is speculation based on the next greater fool principle. The stock price is based not on the value of the company, or its P/E, but on how it's perceived by others trading in the market. I won't even get into market manipulation by the big banks, but suffice it to say that they have been unburdened and they can now trade their money, their depositor's money and they have infinite short term credit with the government. Sounds like some sort of pact with the devil for bailing them out in 2007-2010. That might work in a rising market or even a flat market, but it's a disaster in a falling market. How's your balance sheet?

The other important point to make is that buying stock is not an "investment " in anything. Investment implies that it is being used to develop new technology, a new extraction business, a new business infrastructure, something that creates a fundamental increase in efficiency in the economy to deliver goods and services, and therefore an earned profit. Again, it's speculation. Your giving some previous owner of the stock your cash in the belief that someone else in the future will buy that stock for more money. I do agree that stocks should not be traded publicly.

I think that it would be nice if those in the upper 0.1% would thank the suckers from the working middle class and let them know that they have enjoyed spending their retirement savings.