Among many other reasons, the biggest reason for me that the US stock market cannot be trusted is because market makers combine 3 techniques to create fraud and push risk to others to dilute unwitting companies and investors: borrow stocks, selling a borrowed stock to buy later, strategically failing to deliver stock.

Borrowing stocks doesn’t create a clean paper trail, can be done repeatedly, and steals shareholder votes.

Selling a borrowed stock to buy later can strategically intend to fail from the start where they don’t even have to locate (not even acquire as you might assume) a share to borrow, effectively creating new shares out of thin air. Market makers in the US can legally do this, even for the benefit of their hedge fund counterparts (sometimes under the same company).

Fails for stock delivery are allowed, so they’re a strategy. Cash in lieu is not the same as share ownership. Cash is fungible, stocks are not, and this gap can create technically infinite risk.