I don't understand why people have shares, the market now has nothing to do with raising capital any more, and everything to do with speculation, fear mongering, manipulation and profiteering.
This book is not bad bed time reading for those interested:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fooled_by_Randomness
Taleb sets forth the idea that modern humans are often unaware of the existence of randomness. They tend to explain random outcomes as non-random.
Human beings:
overestimate causality, e.g., they see elephants in the clouds instead of understanding that they are in fact randomly shaped clouds that appear to our eyes as elephants (or something else);
tend to view the world as more explainable than it really is. So they look for explanations even when there are none.
So why are the markets worth 4% less than they were yesterday? What changed? Nothing. Apart from fear and/or a small group of people / organisations making a whole pile of money.
. You're right however, it is "... typical of the socialist left ...", not just on these forums.
