Look, Uncle Sam is busy cleaning up its own mess on human rights problems. Does the US still think it's the beacon of human rights? Illustration: GT

The US stock market witnessed another spike, with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ hitting record highs. 

On Wednesday, Apple reached a market cap of $2 trillion. If one looks just at the US stock market and nothing else, he or she would believe that the US is in the most prosperous period. But the reality is that the US has been entangled in the severe novel coronavirus epidemic. 

Every day, tens of thousands of Americans get affected, and hundreds die from it. Economic prosperity in the real sense is far, far away. The middle class and poor people who lost their jobs descend into depression due to the epidemic as well as economic predicament. 

Apple's value has doubled in the past five months. The performance of other tech giants is also commendable. This is partly due to people's dependence on digital products. But the prosperity of the stock market contrasts the US' poor economic performance, leading a Reuters report to ask whether US stocks are detached from reality.

The rise in the stock market is a good thing, but not everyone benefits from it. The US stock market has increasingly been a shield for the wealthy to profit. The US government turns a blind eye to the grass roots hit hard by both the COVID-19 epidemic and economic woes, but puts all resources and attention to the stock market. 

The excitement the US president and his team feel about the rise in the stock market is much more than the sadness they have for the infections and deaths of their own people. 

It sounds strange that the number of deaths from the epidemic is not that important, but the president and his team have more chances to get reelected as long as the stock market performs well. In reality, this serves only the US politics.

Capital has an inherent advantage in Western systems. But the rights of the public need to be protected by political means. When the coronavirus epidemic broke the balance of social resources, capital can quickly consolidate its advantages, while ordinary people cannot protect themselves - the so-called fairness and justice is torn apart.

The epidemic has not brought the US down. But the epidemic has exposed the humanitarian disguise of the US, and brought to light the true face of US "solidity" and "strength."

The US must ensure that it is a superpower so that it can have the financial hegemony to let the world bear the consequences of its quantitative-easing measures. 

It also must ensure that it is much wealthier than other countries, so that poor people in the US still look like living a much better life than those in many other countries. 

Only by doing so can the US dilute its already deformed wealth disparity, and hide the serious unfairness under the guise of democracy. The US is lying about human rights, but such lies cannot hold up. The functioning wealth gap is losing steam.

It doesn't look right when chaos occurs in a myth-like "perfect country," and stock market prosperity becomes the most important pillar of national confidence. Then the US government and some political elites began to advocate major power confrontation as an excuse to look for a new source of unity. 

Like the stock market detaching itself from reality, US politics has embarked on the path of arrogance that is detached from the people's welfare.