[justfor1comment]

The current situation can be partly blamed on the quantitative easing undertaken by the Fed post 2008 housing crisis. By printing trillions of dollars out of thin air and using them to bail out AIG and other rich businesses the dollar in our pockets lost a portion of its value. The wiki section on QE talks about this effect in more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing#Increased_...

[fjp]

It also went directly into corporate balance sheets instead of to the average person. People that own tons of stock won BIG. People that own small-medium amounts of stock (think retirement accounts) did okay.

People who didn't own stock got nothing.

[heavenlyblue]

>> People who didn't own stock got nothing.

So they lost, since the total amount of money in the economy increased.

[KitDuncan]

I don't know, but the situation here in Germany feels very similar.