well they weren’t exactly propelled by the rise in real estate per se. They were propelled by the drop in interest rates and lending practices that fed the real estate market and made the building costs of commercial real estate so cheap that even churches were building strip malls to add value to their portfolios.
Whatever it was propelled by is not important. What I am saying is this country either no longer has industries or is weak in those industries that take raw materials and convert them into valuble goods. Instead, we became obsessed with giving everyone college degrees, when the only jobs available are flipping burgers cleaning toilets. That’s good for MacDonalds and the diploma mills, but a lousy trade-off for the nation as a whole.