I think the point is that the economy has become more-oriented towards financial outcomes. Companies are doing things which boost their stock price but don't actually result in a greater level of overall economic activity beyond higher profits.

This criticism is always going to be scattergun because there isn't any one thing you can point to. I expected the article to be terrible but the conclusion/main points are basically sound (I actually assumed the guy wasn't a financial professional but appears to have been, it is a bit scattergun but actually covers a lot of ground well).

You are seeing things today that make zero sense. Companies that have profitable businesses trading on 5x earnings and other companies that are never likely to be profitable are trading on 30x or 50x sales.

I think people view the stock market as semi-relevant because it often isn't new capital being raised but it has a huge signalling effect for private sector activities. I remember five years ago when people said the stock market was dead. Well, it turned out those people need your money now. The tail is wagging the dog. And, unfortunately, one of the side-effects has been that it is impossible to raise money for anything profitable (the problem with profit is that they are never large enough, losses are fantastic because you can always say...but wait until we are profitable, the profits will be huge). The companies on 5x earnings are buying back, the companies on 50x sales are issuing stock (largely for employees and insiders to cash out).

I am not sure if it is a huge issue because it will correct. But I think there will need to be a re-examination (once again) of the role of monetary policy, it has made everything significantly worse. Huge impact on inequality, created a fake shortage of safe assets which caused a bump in prices that led more money out of risky assets (this is the opposite of the intended effect of QE), etc. A total car crash.

One thing that is perhaps understated is the extent to which the US market has globalized. A lot of stocks today are overvalued but GOOG was trading at 12x earnings ten years ago. And what people then under-estimated was the global growth potential. YouTube and Netflix are watched more than linear TV in some countries amongst young people, and live TV is still a very big business. That is why it is difficult to talk about the connection between growth in US equities and US economic growth, they are detached.

Another things that is understated is the extent to which most institutional investors have totally checked out of...well, investing. Not just ETFs but in Japan, they just buy CLOs...in Taiwan, they just buy CLOs...in Germany, CLOs (and private loan funds). All this money is flowing into private equity but not lending to the real economy (and it is fair to point out, that lending to private equity is just transferring money from X to Y...it creates nothing). QE has facilitated this, it made investing in risk-free assets very profitable, the drop in interest rates since the early 80s did the same, these flows of foreign money haven't improved investment, they have just siphoned wealth out of the US (totally counter-intuitive but economic models operate under the assumption that supply of savings creates demand for investment, unf the supply of investable ideas is quite fixed but private equity will create the securities if there is enough capital...it can't go on forever). This is the irony of saying the US should copy the "Asian Growth Model"...that model only works because exporters can invest the dollars and create the overseas investment income.