The U.S. is going through a greedy oligarch phase. The silent generation was the one that built all that infrastructure and had the proper tax incentives to make both public and private infrastructure projects happen. Massive ones.

And then the baby boomers came along. And they have just cash cowed that infrastructure, not doing a good job maintaining it, not advancing it, letting it rot, while they pocket the benefit, stuffing it into the stock, bond, and real estate markets, benefiting really no one but themselves. They are a hoarding generation. And they seem fairly OK with a re-emergence of aristocracy as a result: I've got mine, you go get your own. Everything is a product. Rich people get more. Cooperation is socialism. Etc.

So it'll be up to gen X and millenials to decide what comes next.