"How can Wall Street be doing so well while America continues an increasingly rapid decline?" Anyone with a basic understanding of how business and politics work would find that question to be ridiculous, but to most Americans it seems reasonable because most Americans believe Wall Street is somehow connected and aligned with America's rise or fall. They believe that Wall Street and Main Street America are part of the same mutually dependent system. Unfortunately for them, that is not remotely true.
Wall Street is a euphemism for the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) economy and while many of the largest commercial/investment banks, insurance companies and real estate developers work in and around New York City, USA - that is in no way, shape, or form an indication of where their loyalty or interests lie.
Most of the founders of America, particularly Jefferson, had intense hatred for investment and central banks and viewed them as tools for English and other European interests to plunder America's resources for short term riches. Other founder, particularly Alexander Hamilton, believed that the powers of banking and debt could be marshaled to build an empire on the British model. The ultimate solution, after considerable strife of different interests (particularly Southern agriculture's objections to tariffs) was the American System of protectionism, national banking and subsidized infrastructure projects which transformed a poorly developed former colony into an industrial powerhouse rivaling its former masters.
It was a national vision and commitment to the country's prosperity that liberated America from dependence on the Great Powers of Europe NOT free markets, free trade, privatizing government services and letting speculators run amok; that Un-American policy, known today as Neoliberalism, has not lead any country to independence and prosperity, in fact it consistently yields dependency, lackluster development and debt slavery.
But why? Why doesn't the FIRE economy or Wall Street serve national interests? The answer is simple, it is not meant to. The purpose is to enrich a select few in a select way and then force everyone else to comply with the system that engages in that selection process.
Obviously most people who don't benefit from the system (which is most everybody) would not agree to comply if they understood how disadvantageous it was for them. This is where the industry of public relations/marketingcomes in (formerly called propaganda) that tries, with considerable success, to convince the many that they will become the precious few - which is by definition impossible. In order to keep the truth from getting out they must continually alter or reframe the public debate about what is happening to the country.
For example "Globalization" was a new frame used in the 90s by Neoliberal hacks after Thatcherism and Reaganism were losing their luster, most prominently by Tom Friedman in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree which became the primer for FIRE apologists everywhere.
The book glorified the opening of markets for trade and capital as had never be done before with amazing claims about the power of free market capitalism to solve all our problems culminating in the fantastic proclamation "No two countries that both had McDonald's have fought a war against each other since they both had gotten their McDonalds." Wow, thanks Ronald! Except for the fact that the U.S and Panama, India and Pakistan, Israel and Lebanon, as well as Russia and Georgia all had McDonald's when they fought each other (I blame Hamburgler). Apparently multinational corporations don't stop wars. In another comedic twist, Friedman said he thought of the basic idea for his screed after returning from a Lexus factory and therefore used Lexus as a symbol to represent free markets and free trade...somehow forgetting that Toyota Motor Corporation (who makes the Lexus vehicles) was the product of State sponsorship and protectionism and only advocated free trade after decades of state subsidy (including bailouts) and protection from foreign competitors via tariffs. Must have been a short trip.
While Friedman preached Neoliberal dogma and told everyone the internet was magic, global economic growth actually stalled and after the tech bubble burst much of the gains made by the American economy in the 90s were erased. Which takes me to another point.
Believe it or not, finance, even in Manhattan, was previously a middle class to upper middle class job. While the most prominent or successful financiers were extremely wealthy, the typical competent and experienced financial professional was compensated on par with their equivalents in medicine and law. That all changed after the Neoliberal inspired deregulation wave hit in the 1980s. Suddenly people in their 20s, usually white men from upper middle class backgrounds, were becoming millionaires speculating (and insider trading) in the financial markets. Then came the invention of the debt engine, Leverage Buyouts which heaved massive loads of debt onto the economy and created little to no value other than to those raiding the targeted company. The raiders quickly discovered one of the easiest ways to cut costs in order to pay back the banks they borrowed the money from (to buy the company) was to layoff workers, cha-ching!
The 80s would see a Debt Crisis in South America and a Savings and Loan Crisis in America. Later to be followed in the 90s by an Asian Financial Crisis,Russian financial crisis, the tech bubble bursting and an American Financial Crisis in 2007. It was a wild FIRE rife with currency manipulation, real estate bubbles (Asia and America) and credit crunches. Burn baby burn.
And who prospered at the end of all this? Friedman's electronic herd of course, or more precisely the new elite of Neoliberalim, the Global Investors; people who do not pledge allegiance to any flag, constitution, God or ethos except "more." The proverbial men without a country, who obsessively scour the world in search of FIRE profits at all cost. If that means cutting education, polluting the air and privatizing the water supply, then there is no alternative. While Friedman compared the global investors to an electronic herd of cattle, the more accurate metaphor would be swarm of locusts stripping national economies of wealth and redistributing it to themselves to use for their next meal.
The problem is the system engineered to help the Global Investors can not also serve the overwhelming majority (95%) who aren't getting obscenely rich from wrecking national economies. The overwhelming majority have to live in those wrecked economies and their interest is and should be the National Interest of those countries. Instead, the FIRE economy has corrupted the governments of those countries and perverted the perception of the national interest to the point where the overwhelming majority have been so poorly represented and propagandized they wonder "How can Wall Street be doing so well while America continues an increasingly rapid decline?"
The solution is for states to once again promote the National Interest above the desires of the Global Investors and liberate the overwhelming majority from servitude to finance capital. Capital must be controlled, industries protected, infrastructure invested in and wealth redistributed. Save what's left before the locusts get it all.