1945-1981 convinced me that it was a superior way to run an economy. In the 1950's we had tax rates of 91% on top marginal earned. CEO's didn't get 400x the pay of the average American worker. We had strong unions, we had lots of good paying jobs. In 1963 the largest employer was GM.
Adjust for 2013 $'s and that's a low skill, GM job, that required maybe not even a high school education, got paid $50 an hour, with benefits.
In 2013, the largest employer was Walmart. In 2013, the average part time employee at Walmart got paid $8.86 an hour. And we wonder, where our Middle class have gone in the past 50 years.
I can say Obama though, my family's never been wealthier thanks to how he ran the economy. We have a lot of capital in the market. I hate to share my life story, because it comes off as bragging. My mom dabbled in the stock market for a few years, but never "fully" invested. When she retired in 2007, instead of taking larger payments as part of her retirement package, she took a lump sum, of I think it was tax free money since it was retirement related, and could only be used for investing. I'd have to ask her the details, but she doesn't like me disclosing financial details of our family.
In fact her new nickname, over these past years, around the house is "Money Bags" and "The Witch of Wallstreet" because she's very frugal and for an ordinary person, did very good in the market.
Finally in February of 2009, she pulled the trigger, and dumped a 6 figure sum of money into the market. She did this in part, because she believed Obama's economics were superior, and there's history to that, the market does do better under Democrats than Republicans. it's just a historical fact. March of 2009, the DOW hit a historical low, of around 6,800.
Today, we still have our stock holdings, with trades along the way, and we've done quite well over these past 8 years. DOW is trading at 20,000, in besides the recent run up in the market under Trump, Obama damn near tripled the market. We didn't lift a finger beyond a few clicks of the mouse on the stock trading site. We didn't "work" for all that additional wealth. We just rode the roller coaster.
When I was a kid we were middle to upper middle class, now I wouldn't be surprised if we're in the top 10% of Americans. But a lot of that had to do with the fact, that Americans have fallen behind in my lifetime, and now there's a wider gap between rich and poor, than ever within my lifetime, or my parents lifetimes.
The problem with the market going up, is the lions share of stocks is owned by very wealthy people, so even when the market goes up, Main Street America sees little benefit from it.
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