The Stock Market, Explained PDF

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A short essay that explains how the episode of the Netflix show Explained. The episode was the one of billionaires....

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Tyler Youngdahl Jane Wagar EN 211 17 February 2020 The Stock Market, Explained The show “Explained” as said best by the production company itself, Vox“ Every episode is a roughly 15-minute dive into a topic that drives our lives or our world.” Each episode is its own mini documentary on a specific topic from DNA Editing, to the stock market. The stock market, the words alone gives people a rush of excitement and others a feeling of being trapped or frightened. Some people are so scared to lose it all. The show I have decided to watch on Netflix is from the documentary series by Vox called Explained. (Netflix) Explained goes into details on certain topics based on the episode title. (Klein) For example, they go into how billions are created and how they have been expanding and where they are from in an episode titled “Billionaires”. The episode I have chosen to analyse is the episode “The Stock Market” and it goes over the basics on how the stock market started and the different markets there are. It talks about the different stock exchanges that take place and what they function, and also the different indexes that exist in the world and how it affects the global economy. The creators of these episodes Vox, are a bias source and this is known. (“Vox Media Bias Rating”) On their youtube channel, they post videos about different democratic congressmen and women and how they are doing the right thing, and that the republican senators and equivalent to the devil. They say this despite not having any political experience. (“Vox”) The democratic views of Vox can be seen in the episode of Explained because of how it talks about the stock market is bad and people are making millions off of it just for having the money. It also talks

about how it was a man that started the investing world, and how it is ‘usually always a man’ as if it is a bad thing just for the fact that men created something. The film interested me greatly. It was about something that interests me, not just money, but the stock market as a whole. I love knowing how it goes up and down and why it does this. Though the explained episode did not go into depth on these topics, I have previous experience and I know this information. This film did serve a purpose though, it served as an entry point for anyone that is interested in the stock market and does not know where to start with getting this information. The film’s main goal is to inform you on the history of the stock market and why it exists the way it does, and I think it does this quite well. It is not too heavy of information that it turns the average person away, and not too boring that even the most advanced investors will refuse to watch it. It talked about the history of investing in the stock market or just investing in companies and businesses all together. John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt are prime examples of people in business power. They have created companies and more and more companies from that. They have done this through investing in themselves, and without this investing they would have never been the economic powerhouses as they were when they passed away. The social context? Not much. I do not think there is much that really made this come out, I do however appreciate it. It really shows how the stock market came to be. I think if I had to pick one event that made this episode need to happen it is the market crash of 1929. People lost their cars, their businesses, their life savings, and their retirements; however the market always seems to bounce back and we need to know that. The market only works when we have faith in it, and if we do not, then it will never succeed. (Amadeo) We as people need the market to succeed for retirement. The market goes up on average of 10% per year and we need it to go

up each year for people’s retirement funds to be there. If we all pull out of the market then the market will go down and people’s retirements will be reduced to zero. (“What’s a Stock?”) This really changes the fact of me watching this, because we all know that the market crashes almost every decade and it always bounces back as long as we believe in it. (“Stock Market Crashes The History, The Why, The How”) The film does use other sources to get the information in it across, because the information is not entirely given. Vox uses exact numbers that could only have if they have done their own research on the topic. As many dates and numbers are not common information. Their information has a bias, as they are a left leaning source and left-learners tend to have democratic views on the world, and it is shown. (“Vox Media Bias Rating”) Democratic views are different then Republican views about money and economist view on the stock market as well. The difference in the views can be seen in the film and Vox probably got their information from leftleaning sources. In conclusion, the stock market is a very complex organism-like system. People buy and people sell, but if you are not careful you may lose it all, just like in 1929. The film is a good first source to anyone that is intrigued by the market, and wants to learn more and for those that would like to learn more of the history. We all need to trust the system for the system to work and not doubt every last thing we invest in, or we would cause another global crisis.

Work Cited “The Stock Market.” Explained, season 1, episode 7, Vox, 20 Jun. 2018. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80243757?

trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C13%2C65bd62b6-c368-4efa-96f9-2e82313cb1e859173877%2C%2C. Accessed 10 Feb. 2020. Amadeo, Kimberly. “Worst Stock Market Crash in U.S. History.” The Balance, https://www.thebalance.com/stock-market-crash-of-1929-causes-effects-and-facts3305891. Accessed 2 Feb. 2020. Klein, Ezra. “Vox’s Netflix Show ‘Explained,’ Explained.” Vox, 23 May 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/5/23/17378322/vox-netflix-show-explained. “Stock Market Crashes - The History, The Why, The How.” SpeedTrader, 24 July 2019, https://speedtrader.com/a-history-of-stock-market-crashes/. “Vox.” YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA. Accessed 2 Feb. 2020. “Vox Media Bias Rating.” AllSides, 21 May 2014, https://www.allsides.com/news-source/voxnews-media-bias. “What’s a Stock?” Money, https://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/investing_stocks.moneymag/index4.htm. Accessed 16 Feb. 2020....