"Still, it was sure fun growing up in the 50s and half the 60s, the pinnacle of middle class opportunity thanks to those revolutionary Founding Fathers....pic"

You can thank your founding fathers, but there was an important reason why the last 60 years were what they were. The second world war left Europe, Russia and Japan completely destroyed. A lot of production capacity in the US had also to be used for the war industry. In brief, in 1945 there was little capacity to supply consumer goods and a tremendous world wide demand for such goods created the best of investment and growth opportunities.

Unfortunately, we now seem to find ourselves almost on the other extreme. Our task is now to find a solution to create growth without going through a devastating world war first. For now China, India and the rest of Asia are helping out, but what will happen after that, say in 10-15 years?