I’m old enough to remember when in America there was a wall… not that kind of wall… between banking and the equities markets.

Then that was dismantled, as well as other regulations.

Now, the speculators loved the new freedom, and that is why on that long term graph of started to grow exponentially… until it crashed big.

Also what changed, and this was subtle and many Americans who weren’t paying close attention had no clue, is that the powers that be (i.e., the very rich and the Republican tools) shifted the idea of “retirement” from {Social Security, savings, your house, and life insurance} to a retirement assets centered on equities, which then included derivatives and such flimsy things.

Turning retirement into equities gambling may have been the biggest con during my lifetime (well, at least until Trump fooled his ignorant marks.)