I understand present value and asset valuation. What I don't understand is why every single company needs to go to the stock market, and why they need to make the value of their stock grow as the #1 priority.

I thought that going public was a way to raise money as an alternative to getting a load from a financial institution. The problem is that, as soon as the company goes public, management starts talking about "maximizing shareholder value" and doing things that drive the company to the ground while getting ready to bail out just as the bubble pops.

And, when a company's stock valuation gets into a boom/bust cycle, the market valuation has effectively decoupled itself from the present value of the company's future performance.

So you haven't really answered my question, or I am just slow this morning. Maybe I need to get my brain washed at a business school.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman