Happened about 30 years ago. Since then wages have been pretty flat. Jobs were created but they didn't get to share in all those dollars the company was making.
The big corps quit innovating to a great extent. They went into the money business.
There was an earlier thread about this:
Paul Krugman: “What’s good for the Dow isn’t good for America” http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028015438
... the stock market’s gains paradoxically “reflect economic weaknesses, not strengths.”
The first, and arguably most significant, is that stock prices reflect corporate profits, not personal incomes. The second is that they reflect little more than the availability of investments, and the third is simply that there is very little relation anymore between stock prices and actual investment.
...
these days profits often seem to bear little relationship to investment in new capacity. Instead, profits come from some kind of market power — brand position, the advantages of an established network, or good old-fashioned monopoly. And companies making profits from such power can simultaneously have high stock prices and little reason to spend.
Consider the fact that the three most valuable companies in America are Apple, Google and Microsoft. None of the three spends large sums on bricks and mortar. In fact, all three are sitting on huge reserves of cash. When interest rates go down, they don’t have much incentive to spend more on expanding their businesses; they just keep raking in earnings, and the public becomes willing to pay more for a piece of those earnings…
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/15/paul_krugman_whats_good_for_the_dow_isnt_good_for_america/
= new reply since forum marked as read
