>Fair point... but you are describing what activists like to call generational theft: the wealth is there, but the young are squeezed out by voracious 1%ers and oldsters who sit on vast hoards derived not from personal prowess but from huge property inflation and other assets. This sad distribution could end if (for example) oldsters would sell property for similar relative prices to those they enjoyed themselves, but good luck with that. As for education inflation - recent personal experience is that most applicants for US Ivy League can anticipate financial assistance unless the family is *very* wealthy. Education can't afford to price Joe Average out completely or it becomes just a notion for the majority and undeserving of any special consideration.

Not even close.

When I bought my first house (it was new) in 1961 it cost about 1.5 times my annual salary.
That same house will cost the buyer about $900k today.
You can say similar things about cars, clothes, school tuition, medical costs etc.
Meanwhile incomes, except for those of the very rich or some professions, compared those cost increases have stagnated.
Why?
I personally witnessed the devastation of hundreds of thousands of high paying union jobs begun during the Carter administration and continued during the Reagan and Clinton administrations.
Are you blaming the fact that the US can't pass a minimum wage of $15/hr on generational theft?