America’s Uber Capitalism and Its Financial Markets

Craig Zabala

The US has the largest public and private debt and equity markets globally, with unmatched liquidity for domestic and international issuers engaged in initial and secondary public securities offerings, providing follow-on share price support for issuers, shareholders, investors, financial institutions, and government. Every entrepreneur’s dream of going public is to list their firms on a US stock exchange. However, in America not all firms are equal. This study examines the effects of key actors – ultra-high net worth individuals (centimillionaires and billionaires), commercial and investment banks, brokerage firms, investment funds, family offices and other special purpose vehicles, insurers, financial regulatory regimes, federal agencies, and self-regulatory organizations (SROs) – on firm inequality, focusing particularly on SME sector access to capital. By severely limiting that access, the impact of oligopolies on highly liquid American private and public equity and debt markets leads to sclerotic financial plumbing that militates against free markets, amplifies wealth accumulation, and intensifies the crisis of American capitalism. The research includes time series data from federal government and SRO accounts and participant observation over three-and-a-half decades.