However, most of what you have said is financial industry dogma. Furthermore, that is what they preach, but not what they do themselves. I knew a financial advisor who used to tell me the same things and bang on about opportunity cost, only to find out he lost a couple of million dollars in a penny stock.
At the end of the day, the stock market is a market where companies are bought and sold. The prices keep on going up for the same reason that prices of other products in the economy keep on going up. An ever increasing amount of dollars in the system. Before the US abandoned the gold standard in the 1930s, 'making' money was much harder.
Honestly, most people on the street would get better returns on investment from buying what they need at the local shops. The irony of people 'investing' in the stock market is that they already have more money than they know what to do with, but they are trying to make more money than they know what to do with.
