Stores don't order merchandise unless they think they can sell it right away. Manufacturers and builders don't produce unless they have buyers lined up. My business contacts describe this as a paradigm shift and they believe it's permanent.

The lower half of households by wealth held just 3% of wealth in 1989 and only 1% in 2013.

The distribution of wealth is even more unequal than that of income. ...The wealthiest 5% of American households held 54% of all wealth reported in the 1989 survey. Their share rose to 61% in 2010 and reached 63% in 2013. By contrast, the rest of those in the top half of the wealth distribution —families that in 2013 had a net worth between $81,000 and $1.9 million —held 43% of wealth in 1989 and only 36% in 2013.

Will capitalist economies operate at full employment in the absence of routine intervention? Certainly not.

[A] major source of wealth for many families is financial assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and private pensions. ...the wealthiest 5 percent of households held nearly two-thirds of all such assets in 2013

Are deviations from full employment a social problem? Obviously.

Listening to others, especially those with whom we disagree, tests our own ideas and beliefs. It forces us to recognize, with humility, that we don't have a monopoly on the truth.