I'm not claiming there will never be another downturn -- of course there will be -- but the fact that we just went through the longest non-recessionary period in this country's history, despite all the "short-termism" already indicates at least some flaws in the original hypothesis

I would question whether the measure we should be concerned with is "recession or not" - everything can be getting worse while simultaneously corporate profits are high. That's kind of by definition what short-term thinking gets you - cash in hand but ruined infrastructure and societal safety nets.

You can always find negative things if you go looking for them. The reason people care so much about "income inequality" rather than "poverty rates" is that poverty has declined dramatically around the globe. So doom-and-gloomers shifted the goalposts and ignore successful results.

You can't accuse corporate CEOs of short-term thinking and then use infrastructure and "societal safety nets" as the measurements -- CEOs are responsible for the success of their company, not of the well-being of an entire society, that's the government's job.