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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

> optimised immediate profitability over everything else

Which is the usual complaint that businesses are focused on short term results, sacrificing long term results.

If that would be generally true, the stock market would be going down steeply, not up, as stock prices are based on expectations of future profits.

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Are stock market profit expectations mostly long term? Stock markets have been wrong before.

Besides that, the U.S. stock market went up over several decades while manufacturing capabilities were transferred overseas. That has had, and will continue to have, domestic ramifications that might not be captured by investor profits.

The stock market has been going up for a couple hundred years. When do you expect the pervasive short term thinking will crater the economy?

I didn't say that the economy would be cratered. GDP doesn't capture everything.

> as stock prices are based on expectations of future profits.

I thought stock prices were based one what I thought I could sell it for next week.

If you could sell it for more next week, that means the next week buyers are expecting higher profits.

No, it just means they're expecting someone else to buy it from them at a higher price. See also: bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not a company selling a product.

What exactly is the difference? Someone tweets that next week bitcoin will be worth $x more, or elon tweets that tesla will be worth $x more next week?

Bitcoin isn't run by any organization.

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