Let me explain further: In decades past, S&P was more or less a discounting mechanism for future cash flows used by the wealthy as an alternative to cash-flow producing opportunities available in private markets and elsewhere. That is no longer the case. The passage of MAGA accounts cements the S&P as a new pension scheme for the US. This transition began with the institution of the 401(k) and continues to this day. The S&P 500 is, in a very real sense, a new public good. It is backed by Congress and the Executive. It is also backed by the Fed. All of this creates a very real different return profile from the past. Looking at it and saying a 17 P/E sounds right is ludicrous. Given it's now explicit and implicit gov't backing, its role as the modern-day pension scheme, and its fundamental de facto backing of the bond market, means it deserves a much higher multiple, in the 20s if not 30s. People who ignore all these true yet exogenous facts regarding the markets, and insist on trying to analyze them from 20th century principles, are dinosaurs and not worth of your attention.