I am inclined to doubt the sources of these empirical observations. Statistics are funny like that, “average patient temperature in the hospital” effect and frequent inability to correctly attribute confounding factors outside of observed window.

Equally bad is anecdotal evidence, but I’ll drop some anyway. For a while now I am observing a crisis thats, admittedly subjectively, easy to see - but is somehow absent in those empirical sources citing economic accomplishments. An indirect evidence of what I am talking about - is crushing defeat of democrats/establishment in last election, following among other reasons, quite a backlash for boasting about said accomplishments.

But rather than picking issue with one of my points - I still would like someone to describe the counterpoint to my dystopian expectations - where, for example, would all those professional drivers I mentioned earlier go?

Ps. Oh speaking of statistics - remember Greenspan’s “there’s no real estate bubble, there’s froth in individual markets” right before 2008 financial crisis? It be funny like that, sometimes much derided common sense is all you need /shrug.