yes, 20 years of boom (interrupted only by the mini-recession of 90) did eventually bring it back to even, but it took the ending of the cold war (credit Reagan), low inflation (credit Reagan), a Congress that was against giving money to those unwilling to work (credit Clinton being a total joke during his first two years), and hundreds of billions of dollars of tax revenue PER YEAR of short term capital gains to bring it into surplus.
But, since then, many things ignored during the preceding 40 years have come home to roost: the ponzi scheme of social security and medicare (blame both Dems and GOP), loaning money to those unable to pay it back (sub prime mortgages, blame Dems - which STILL hasnt been fixed),
Dude, you have it precisely backwards - the 80s and the 90s undermined the prosperity established by Keynesian redistributionist economics over the previous five decades, leading to the total collapse of the 21st century.
Depends on whether you're at the 50th percentile or the 98th. Has there ever been a better time to be an owner? Productivity is astronomical, wages are stagnant at best, and well-qualified workers are falling all over themselves for crap jobs. It's the monopoly guy's wet dream.