And the thing that destroys the drive to work hard to learn is the part that you allude to in your second paragraph: rentier activity.

> the cost of living in desirable American locations has gone up astronomically

They financialised housing. It's killing the west. It's creating nothing, it's appropriating wealth.

Sad to see that other thread on what people would do if they could afford it. So many cited their mortgage as the blocker. In the same thread some guy cited his 400k annual bonus for high frequency trading.