What is it? Where did it come from? And how big is it, and so on and so forth.

Okay.

Uh, well, the, the companies, when they go public, they issue shares on the market.

Uh, typically, the reason they issue shares is, uh, to, so the people who have invested in the company can take their money out, and managers can run the company and hopefully grow the company through reinvesting, uh, the profits when they make the profits.

And, uh, uh, traditionally, uh, first, if you want people to hold shares, uh, you want to, uh, give them a yield.

Uh, they can either get that through dividends, uh, if you can afford to pay them, and, uh, or through selling the shares at a higher price at a later point in time.

And up until about the nineteen eighties, uh, uh, that was basically what it was all about, and they were reinvesting, uh, the rest of the money into the company, uh, for capital equipment and for people, and which includes, uh, g- giving employment security pay raises, uh, benefits.

... that, that you c- you know, wages-