09 Jun Restoring Confidence in America’s Capital Markets: Repairing the Broken Engine of our Country’s Economic Growth
America has the greatest capital markets in the world. Most of today’s largest American companies were small or nonexistent twenty-five years ago – a strong testament to the diversity, innovation, and efficiency of our capital markets. The markets also generate wealth for individuals: a majority of Americans own stocks, and during the 1980s and 1990s the S&P 500 averaged a return of 14.7% per year.
Recent headlines, however, have shown that our markets are in serious danger of losing the confidence that made them so successful. In the past few years, there have been well-publicized cases in which Wall Street insiders and corrupt corporate executives have made themselves rich at the expense of ordinary investors; shareholders and lenders have lost confidence in the performance and honesty of publicly traded corporations and their leaders; and money has poured out of stock mutual funds as small investors have rushed to withdraw from the stock market.
Read the full report here: