The US Needs to Rediscover the Meaning of Investment

American capitalism has undergone a transformation into a system that might more properly be called “uncapitalism”. The real economy now serves the financial sector, instead of vice versa. Investment shortfalls and overheated financial markets have contributed to stagnant productivity and wages, declining international competitiveness and rising wealth inequality.

In a new American Compass report, we analyse nearly 50 years of public-company financial data and show that firms neither tap financial markets to fund growth nor reliably reinvest in their own health — which is what traditional models expect and what they once did.