The stock market is having a run but the private investment market is experiencing an equity strike: people are reluctant to invest in their own business.

The public equity market may be rising because there is just no better place to safely put capital. Gold is at nosebleed levels. Any interest rate increase will doom long term bonds . Short term yields are negligible. Compared to foreign equities American stocks seem the place to be by the process of elimination. Real estate is still overbuilt and flat in most markets.

Furthermore, larger publicly held companies have the resources to adapt to the hyper regulatory state that has imposed itself on the American business community. The equity market has the ultimate liquidity advantage; a click on E-trade and you can turn any position into cash in seconds.

A privately held business has none of these advantages. If they can get capital it is expensive and it is anything but liquid. A large piece of equipment to expand cannot readily be turned to cash, and few private business owners are willing to take such risks when they do not know what their taxes will be in six months, nor what their health insurance costs per employee will be in a few months. (But few are betting it will be lower.)

The accumulation of friction costs has caused a capital strike in the private business market. It is just safer for me to invest dollars into a good public company with growth potential, and currently yielding 3% or more in dividends than to either keep it in cash or invest it in my business where it is stuck if the investment proves wrong.

Job growth, however, usually comes from the private sector. This bifurcated capital market is bad for employment.

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