Discussion on question by Cloud: Why isn't everybody rich?

1) "#$%! happens" ... Invested $50K in a tech fund in Feb 2000? You lost it. Bought real estate in 2006? You lost it. W/zero debt & after ~20yrs of saving/investments since age 18, I'm nowhere near retiring thanks in part to bubbles & recessions. 2) Investing requires disposable income. Millions of working or geographic "poor" spend ALL of their income on rent, bills & food. 90% of Americans have < $5K saved. Wages stagnated for 40yrs while costs skyrocketed. Investing isn't an option. 3) Time + piddly interest rates. 0-2% for the past decade! Yrs of losses take yrs to recover.

If everyone was "rich" would anyone really be "rich" then?

@EllieKesselman Perhaps it's not a great question. Though, actually, I think it could have been simply handled by closing as duplicate of this question about creating a self-fullfilling prophecy - making everybody rich by stock market investments is essentially the same idea. The other question has some good answers. Perhaps moving to Economics SE would also work.

Accepted answer is objectively false. Not everyone can be rich because by definition, it would require everyone to be far above average. There's no "behavior" that would allow all people to be above the arithmetic mean wealth. Absurd.

@jamessqf - Clearly a whole lot of people lost a lot of money and homes and investment value as I said. The question is "why isn't everybody rich [from investing]" not "why are a handful of people rich." If you bought into a "tech fund" (which by definition is not diversified) in early 2000, it most likely took years to recoup losses from the bubble collapse. An "affordable" house bought in '06 might've recovered its value by now, but depending on circumstances chances are good that in the meantime the owner sold at a loss to get out from under the debt, or wiped out other savings.