Futures and options are explicit levered plays

the share market as a whole has in-built leverage against the nominal economic growth, same with the property market.

Nominal economic growth and credit/debt expansion enhances each other; when the economy stops growing, the most leveraged assets get destroyed, which damages money supply, which tightens bredit and further hinders growth.

So there is this self feeding cycle between growth and credit money supply expansion: a virtuous one on the up, and a vicious one on de way down.

The credit expansion cycle has reached its absolute peak and can only go down from here, this is where the FED/Bernanke comes in to play its role: monetize the debt ie replacing credit money with base money.