Basically America is a house of cards. Unearned income, and leveraging debt. Consumer debt is almost as much as the National Debt. And the ONLY reason why America can do this is because the dollar is the world reserve currency. If the dollar wasn't the world reserve, the US would be living like Mexico or worse.
- Stocks & Mutual Funds: ~33-35%
- Pensions/Retirement Accounts (which are mostly invested in stocks/bonds): ~20%
- Direct Real Estate Holdings (non-primary residence, rental property, land): ~12%
- Business Equity & Private Investments: ~10-12%
- Asset Inflation: A huge portion of wealth is a result of asset price inflation (stocks, real estate values going up, not because of real production but due to low interest rates, speculation, QE policies, and corporate buybacks).
- Wealth Concentration: The top 1% owns nearly 50% of all stocks and financial assets. So, while "average wealth" looks huge, it's heavily skewed.
- Real Economy Disconnect: Wage growth and real economic productivity haven’t kept pace with asset values. Financial wealth has grown faster than GDP.
- Debt-Backed Valuations: A lot of real estate wealth is leveraged (debt-fueled), making it vulnerable to interest rate shifts and crashes.
- Roughly 90% of financial asset ownership is held by the top 10%.
