Greed. It's as simple as that. Greedy corporations, greedy Wall Street bankers and the greedy citizens that permitted the deregulation of business, finance and politics stole our future.
Economist back in the 1950's were predicting that productivity would increase to a point where we'd all work 3-4 days a week and have a higher standard of living than was available at the time. We got the productivity increases but greed syphoned it off to the CEO's and Board members instead of the workers.