A Private Stock Market Free of Regulation.
This can't end well.

I know next to nothing about finances, investing, Wall Street, which pretty much explains my convulsive savings account. But I do understand this:

Nasdaq is set to launch tomorrow what its executives are calling one of the most significant developments on Wall Street in decades -- a private stock market for super-wealthy investors.

Minimum requirement for traders: $100 million in assets.

Can things get any more exclusionary?

Any private firm can list on Nasdaq's new platform, which is called the Portal Market, and raise money by selling stock to an elite group of shareholders. These companies would remain private and not have to make public their financial statements or submit to federal regulation, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate accountability law.

No federal regulation. That's been working well. What about the rest of us who, you know, don't have a hundred million dollars?

Ordinary investors can only participate indirectly if their mutual fund creates an account to trade on the private markets. [...] In just a few years, Nasdaq officials predict, stock offerings on private markets will far exceed IPOs on public exchanges.

Why not just privatize everything? Who needs a middle class, anyway, right?

But the trend is causing a backlash among working-class Americans who generally are shut out from investing directly in those circles...

Ya think?! This brings us to another edition of our

*Vote Republican!* snappy Campaign-omercial file:

Mom 'n' Pop businesses? How quaint! The middle class? A thing of the past! Unions? Kooky! The Republican party stands for corporate power, corporate war machine, corporate everything! Let's hear it for U.S.of A., Inc.! Why, some corporations are bigger than...entire nations! Hot dog! And lobbyists? Uh oh! Love those yachts, jet planes, and hot tubs! Who could ask for more? Vote Republican: The hog heaven party!

BONUS CAMPAIGN-O-MERCIAL, KIDS!

Land-o'-Goshen, just think! With the elimination of the middle class, there's no educated electorate! Which means we can sell ignorant people just about anything! We can sell them 30,000 casualties in Iraq, "enhanced interrogation techniques", and total privatization! We'll call everything an "opportunity", but we know it's really just good old fashioned ignorance. Nobody will suspect a thing! Vote Republican: The party of mass infliction!