We should have had a prosperous time. WW2 was over. The US economy was the only one that was unscathed by the war.
We had very little competition at the time.
Some think that's how it should be now....that's an unrealistic expectation to think the world economy would not have grown.
IMHO,
The US squandered a lot of opportunities. Pure micro vision (benefit of a small group at the expense of all) and short sighted (3 year time horizon - political system) corporate greed which the politicians promoted has led us to where we are at.
The American political class is beholden to the big corporations and oligarchs who own them. The MSM, big tech, are also owned by these same few. They are the ones contributing to the campaigns, charities, foundations, hiring family members, buying art, paying $10-$20K for a plate of chicken and reserving entire round tables at political fund raisers, pay $20 million for a 45 minute speech, hire family as consultants, pay millions to lobbying groups... There is a small sliver of people in America who in reality have a vast and disproportionate impact on policy and regulations. These people can literally change the laws, like Bill Gates, big pharma or Disney did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Do you really think he gave >$300 to the elections because he cares so much about democracy? https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/9/1/21417022/mark-zuckerberg-elections-300-million-facebook-center-for-tech-and-civic-life
Zuckerberg had the the FTC and others breathing down his neck, accusing Meta of being a monopoly and wanting to break them up: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ceos-amazon-apple-facebook-google-face-congressional-antitrust/story?id=72034939 After the 2020 elections all that just sort of vaporized! Why and how do you think that is?
It’s a monopoly game but do not think that the rules of this game apply to all or are consistent.
Why does this matter? Off shoring and in ever lasting pursuit of cheap/slave labor, tax, labor law and EPA avoidance, has made those in big tech (Apple), manufacturing (GM), and retail (Amazon) into billionaires, but the nation as a whole has suffered as those jobs which created the middle class went away. The US has created a new middle class in the PRC though!
For years Americans were sold some lie about how everyone wins with globalization and offshoring, but in reality all it has done is make the US DEPENDENT on foreign manufacturing and in some cases even tech, destroy the middle class and create a near third world situation of many poor and a few extremely rich (no different than South of the border, only not that extreme yet).
The US is where it is today not because of some inevitable world macro economic trend, rather because of short sighted corporate greed and a political class which takes their direction from the heads of these corporations and financial institutions which of course all only act in their own best interest.