Sure - you are arguing for the efficient market hypothesis, which is positively retro of you in light of 2008. Your statement: The ones that are right (whose opinions are correct) "make money and survive." Which is where I go - Worldcom - Enron - Countrywide - WaMu …and point out that up until a couple days before doomsday, the people making money were the ones who thought these companies were sound. So the first problem with the efficient markets hypothesis is windowing - yeah, overall the universe will die of accumulated entropy but that doesn't mean you have a handle on the temperature of Sirius precisely 80 million years from now. I also pointed out my friend at RealNetworks, who were absolutely killing it in 2000 yet the market just hated on 'em. Their lack of valuation impacted their financing and ended up curtailing their business because the market decided they weren't cool enough. So what I'm saying, in very simple terms, is the stock market is a popularity contest, not a "perfect information" contest, particularly as "perfect information" is considered insider trading and is banned by the SEC. It's kind of ironic, if I may say so, to use the efficient market hypothesis as it pertains to HFT. The whole raison d'etre of HFT is to take advantage of the inefficiencies of the markets as experienced by the rubes and marks. As I recall, wasn't Goldman Sachs busted hard-core for basically using the gimmick from The Sting in their HFT - in other words, delaying their reports to the floor and arbitraging the difference?
I'm not arguing that a market mechanism makes a perfect predictor. As I highlighted in one of my responses above you are giving an investor a fair price to trade in their stock ownership for what it is selling at the moment in the market. I dunno how you suppose to fix the problems with funding RealNetworks. If there is no public market are they going to get funding from the government or private investors???? I mean isn't that even more unfair than having a place where any individual can invest in a company and trade what they think is worthy of their valuation?
You asked for a clarification. I gave you one. Do you have a question? Keep in mind - you asked me based on a flippant comment I made several days ago. I did not set out to lay out a treatise on why the stock market should be banned. My interest in this is tertiary at best - the more antagonistically you treat this, the less likely I am to respond.