It&#x27;s the decade(s) where it took a really long time for us to figure out we just can&#x27;t have our cake and eat it too.<p>If we want to continue with our economic preferences toward growth and capitalism, fine, but we also need to make sure the people at the bottom have enough to contribute meaningfully too, or we blunt the potential in all of that.<p>It really is like a field.  Farmer grows some years of high yield, high drain on the soil crops.  Good times, until they aren&#x27;t.<p>Greed may see sucking it dry as a good thing, but the expectation of high profit at low investment just won&#x27;t last.  What happens when the bounty in a rich, fertile soil is gone?<p>Tepid returns, that&#x27;s what.  Increases in risks and costs too.<p>Edit:  One could seek new, fresh ground, and repeat this.  At some point, there is a lot of sour, drained ground with the winners all fighting over the ever shrinking fertile ground remaining, a clear case of diminishing returns at the macro level, despite many success stories suggesting otherwise.<p>On the other hand, either taking a little less, say by staggering crops or resting ground, or reinvesting some of what is gained to keep the ground healthy and fertile, act together and the bounty possible goes from an awesome peak to something less, still good, but sustainable longer term.  Wealth can still be accumulated, but perhaps less liquid and larger amounts happen over longer periods of time.<p>In a very general sense, this all feels a lot like placing blame and shifting risks and costs around to avoid the more simple, direct and growing issue of how many of us just aren&#x27;t able to participate in the economy in a growth meaningful way.<p>In this sense, disruption is like crack.  Big gains are often had, and we like, want and need those, but it&#x27;s all just buying more time, not actually getting at root causes.  Because of that, many larger gains are offset by problem growth and tepid demand growth, neither of which do any of us longer term good.<p>And while each success appears to hint at an answer, we in a macro sense, just can&#x27;t seem to string enough of them together to make sustainable gains.<p>GDP limps along, while we all chase bright spots... and for many, standard of living declines, despite some growth which should seemingly preserve at least parity.