The one and only real method to wealth creation in the US - levering up other peoples money to take on risk, score big, earn a % or fees, if it fails not your money, try again with other other peoples money. Capitalism is called that because its easy to make money if you have capital.

The US is a wealth creation machine for one simple reason, debt is relatively cheap and their is a lot of capital floating around. Breaking this - stagflation, leverage collapse (08,09) devastates everyone but the people who used other peoples money to earn fees and percentages of gains applying risk to leveraged capital. The common person cant compete. Your PA could churn out 30% returns, whats easier - using other peoples money, levering in 5-10x, and betting any pretty much anything with lower risk than your PA is taking. Capitalism is called capitalism because once you have capital its very easy to make money off it.