Operation: Faking It

Ok, so the stock market is one of the things I'll never understand about the global economy. I mean I get that investors buy and sell shares of companies. I can wrap my head around that. What's beyond me is the part where they occasionally get freaked, sell all their stock and run off a cliff like a pack of well-manicured lemmings.

Stop crying and buy some goddamn stock you bald jerk!

"One hundred of your finest stocks please!"

I know I'm probably displaying my ignorance here when it comes to economics, (displaying ignorance is what the internet is all about!) but what if rich people just stopped panicking? It's my (deeply limited) understanding that the stock market is both an indicator of the health of the economy, and a factor in it. When people are confident in the economy, they buy more stock and that's good for business, right? So why not fake it? Why don't we send some fake investors on to the trading floor to wave around some cash and bellow loudly about how confident they are? You know, just to make everyone feel good about investing.

Crackpottery you say? Perhaps. I don't know. Investors and their mood swings seem like a much bigger threat to the world than a lot of the countries we've invaded recently, so why don't we do something about it? 

They're basically Al-Qaeda with money-clips and that rich-guy smell.