I don't know what the solution is long term but I have a feeling someday this experiment in free market capitalism is going to be considered in similar ways to the USSR's experiment in communism a few decades from now.

Citation needed.

It really depends on how you view the world. If that view is all about money and consumption, then, yeah, you probably won't leave money on the table. There are, however, competing worldviews that offer different versions of the good life, and in my experience, there are plenty of willing to leave money on the table because of it.

IMO the fifties in the US were a total anomaly and they're not coming back ever. It was a time where (more than?) half of the world was taken out of competition due to idiotic economic system of communism, and Europe, the only potential competitor to the US, was still in shambles after the war. The US were a sole economic superpower, no wonder people had it great back then.

The skyrocketing housing prices are caused by strict zoning regulations, and there is absolutely nothing about free market capitalism in strict zoning regulations.

One worked for Google, and lived in a shared house in Sunnyvale because it was the only way to save towards something

The other was a teacher at a fancy school up in SF that will remain un-named. She literally lived in a kitchen pantry in the tenderloin. (Deep pantry - deep enough to fit a bed).