Because the government & Fed destroy the value of the U.S. dollar...
Americans are virtually forced to speculate in the stock market to try to get by.
Investing in stocks is a specialized skill and most people should NOT be doing it (in my opinion).
But to try to offset the dying dollar, people do it. (Wall Street loves this, of course.)
But it's even worse than just speculating *with money that you have* in the stock market.
Americans are *borrowing* record amounts of money to throw into the stock market. Using your own money is not enough.
As the stock market is pumped up and propped up with borrowed money, once stocks start to sell off, the panic is precipitous as margin calls cascade.
When you buy with borrowed money, you can't ride it out. You are forced to sell. You and many, many others.
The end of Empires are ugly for a reason.
Everything that is wrong is amplified as being normal.
