When the Market Wins but the Worker Doesn’t

This weekend, my daughter took my fifteen-year-old, Alex, shopping for homecoming. I’m sure he’ll look great. She’s coming back next week to see Grammy. Dalanee will be in Houston all next week for a follow-up surgery, so Grammy is coming in to save the day.

The boys’ school is offering a Classics Book Program—some heavy reading. The Republic by Plato, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Iliad by Homer, and The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. My oldest is excited about it, which impresses me. The youngest, on the other hand, finds the idea of even considering it funny.

Stinky continues to terrorize the entire house. He goes from cat to dog to cat to dog, picking fights with anyone who engages him. If he hears the sound of food being served-cat or dog-he muscles out the other five animals and chows down. He’s truly a menace. He is truly lucky the other animals are so docile. They are much bigger. 

The stock market’s booming, and portfolios look great. For retirees, that’s fantastic. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: those gains aren’t coming from some golden age of innovation. They’re coming from pressure.

Companies have figured out how to squeeze the system, fewer workers, more automation, higher prices, and massive share buybacks. Every time a corporation "finds efficiency," someone else loses stability. Wages stall, costs rise, and profit margins widen. That widening gap is what shows up as "market strength."

Who benefits? Owners. Who gets crushed? Workers.

And ownership isn’t evenly spread. Boomers hold around two-thirds of America’s wealth, mostly in stocks and real estate. Millennials and Gen Z hold almost none of the wealth. So when prices go up and profits surge, it feels like the economy is doing well… but only for people who already own pieces of it.

Here’s the paradox: The very pressures that make life harder for the young are the same ones inflating the portfolios of the old. The worker’s struggle is the shareholder’s success.

That’s not a moral statement. It’s just math. Capital flows upward. Labor gets thinner. The stock market cheers what working families quietly resent.

And I think we should at least take a look. Because when half the country feels like they’re running uphill just so someone else’s dividends grow, that’s not sustainable socially.

The system isn’t evil. It’s just doing what it was designed to do: reward ownership. But maybe it’s time we start asking if ownership itself needs to be more accessible, through profit-sharing, employee ownership, or simply helping young people build equity sooner.

Be Blessed,

Dave