> The S&P 500 has returned 400% since the crash in a mere 12 yrs. If doubling your money every 6 years does not sound excellent to you, the it's a financial education that is lacking, not real opportunity.

This is rich in hindsight bias and selective reasoning. Picking returns since the minimum is intellectually dishonest. Also the inflation fueling this is also fueling the economic disillusionment of the YOLO Gamestop "investor."

The greater problem I have with your comments is you are focused only on potential high achievers, and seem to have little sympathy for the common man. We don't only need a nation of high achievers with the good education you advocate. We need a nation where the average (really median) person has a future to look forward to, and can achieve at least a modicum of accomplishment and self-respect, if not wealth and prosperity too. YOLO investors as per Gamestop are not the people you are discussing. They are very average people who have very little to look forward to.

> If someone wants to smoke weed all day and do nothing, that sucks. But if they're high achieving and want to relax _after_ killing it, who are we to tell them no?

Why does it suck? If people want to self-medicate, why judge them? A society where everyone must be “high achieving” sounds like a dystopia. We’re practically already post-scarcity on a lot of goods and automation is going to further eliminate the need for workers.

And the Nasdaq only matched its 2000 peak in 2017.

Investment can be powerful, but you are cherry picking.