Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

The Stock Market Is An “Attractive Nuisance” And Should Be Closed

The dark pool of parasitic scum known as the stock market is an “attractive nuisance” that should be shut down.

In tort law, an attractive nuisance is any potentially hazardous object or condition that is likely to attract the naive and unwary, i.e. children.

A classic example is an abandoned swimming pool half-filled with fetid water.

Since many stock market investors are demonstrably naive about the risks and unwary of the dangers posed by the stock market (the proof of this is that they remain invested in the market), it is but a slight extrapolation of the attractive nuisance doctrine to declare the stock market is clearly an “attractive nuisance” and should be closed immediately.

Is this really a legal stretch? Consider the conditions that characterize an attractive nuisance. I have edited these to pertain to the stock market and investors:

1. The market is one in which the Powers That Be (the exchanges, the Central State, the central bank, et al., the effective “owners” of the stock market) know or have reason to know that brainwashed or ill-informed investors are likely to risk their money in.

2. The market is one of which the Powers That Be know or have reason to know (and fully realize or should realize) will involve an unreasonable risk of financial loss or ruin to such investors.

3. The investors, because of their consumption of officially sanctioned propaganda and misrepresentation of market risk and return, do not discover or realize the risk involved in placing money in the stock market. (more…)