• The world's biggest economy continues to shed jobs, yet dupes the world into believing that debt spending amounts to real GDP growth.

• The easy credit provided by the US Federal Reserve to the big investment banks hasn't been used to fuel the direct economy in the form of lending to entrepreneurs - instead it's chasing high-risk returns as if the 2007/2008 meltdown never happened. One spin-off of this has been a boom in emerging markets, South Africa included, which have by no means yet recovered from the worst global recession in decades.

• Conspiracy theories about the links between Goldman Sachs and the US administration are starting to flicker in the mainstream, suggesting a flame or two amid the smoke (and mirrors).

• Executives of listed companies are cashing in their shares like crazy, prompting concerns that their faith in the ability of their own businesses to generate earnings is less than rock solid.

• Some of the most debt-damaged firms, like AIG, have attracted the most hot money and shown the quickest share-price growth.

It's as if the wielders of large global capital have convinced themselves they're in a new paradigm - and we know how this kind of thinking ends: in bubbles that pop. How else to explain good money (if you can call a cheap fiat currency like the dollar good) buying up "assets" that can realistically only be classed as junk?

The stock market has become a giant Ponzi scheme, relying not on tangible growth but on cynical hopes that new investors will be sucked in to keep the fools' casino in working order.

Shares have been almost entirely divorced from their underlying enterprises. Listed company codes have become mere cyphers - able to be bought and sold but signifying nothing. Don't agree? Then explain why shattered wrecks like mortgage lenders Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac are moribund in real life, yet are thriving in the never-never land of the Dow Jones index.

The old idea about the stock market was that you bought companies on the strength of their underlying value, or potential to deliver higher earnings in the future. If you held on long enough, the firms would pay loyal shareholders a stream of dividends (or share of the profits) that would eventually see your initial outlay repaid in full.

Alternatively, you could play the growth game: even if the company ploughed all its profits into expansion and didn't pay dividends, you held on because the rising share price reflected a strong balance sheet and healthy cash flow. You sold and realised your capital gain when your informed reading of economic and business trends told you the company was due for a downturn.

These days it's hard to see either of the two strategies working. Shares are being bought by the big boys seemingly without a care for the underlying nuts and bolts. And they're being sold, in similar fashion, to mugs like you and me.

That's why contrary-minded punters are piling into gold: at least with a coin or bar in your hand you know what you're holding.