You’re thinking of money as being more central than it is. Instead, try shifting your view back to barter days, where currency is just another thing that can be traded for. So, if you had some corn to sell, you could sell it for $3, or you could sell it for 5 cans of beans. Another way to phrase that is: You could use your corn to buy 5 cans of beans, or you could use your corn to buy $3.
Now, imagine that the stock market, instead of being valued in currency, was valued in the amount of whatever random good you want. E.g. the s&p 500 is worth 90 trillion cans of beans, or 2 billion jacuzzis or 1.6 million 747s. Clearly there’s nothing that limits the S&P from growing to be larger than the number of beans there are in the world, just like nothing prevents the S&P from growing larger than the amount of money in the world.
(Clearly the amount of money in the world can affect how companies can grow, since monetary policy affects lots of things. But, while this is clearly different in magnitude, it’s no different in principle than “the number of 747s in the world affects how airlines can grow”.)
You’re thinking of money as being more central than it is. Instead, try shifting your view back to barter days, where currency is just another thing that can be traded for. So, if you had some corn to sell, you could sell it for $3, or you could sell it for 5 cans of beans. Another way to phrase that is: You could use your corn to buy 5 cans of beans, or you could use your corn to buy $3.
Now, imagine that the stock market, instead of being valued in currency, was valued in the amount of whatever random good you want. E.g. the s&p 500 is worth 90 trillion cans of beans, or 2 billion jacuzzis or 1.6 million 747s. Clearly there’s nothing that limits the S&P from growing to be larger than the number of beans there are in the world, just like nothing prevents the S&P from growing larger than the amount of money in the world.
(Clearly the amount of money in the world can affect how companies can grow, since monetary policy affects lots of things. But, while this is clearly different in magnitude, it’s no different in principle than “the number of 747s in the world affects how airlines can grow”.)