The sell-off of the real capital base

As the managers of the real capital stock in the US shifted from engineers, marketers and operations people to financial managers, that is, from experts in the real domain to those in the virtual domain, it is not surprising that the industrial leadership became willing to cash out the real assets in favor of financial assets. 

At the same time, so long as the rest of the population was being bought off with over-consumption and low commodity and product prices coupled with high asset values, the people were indifferent to the sell-off of the creative real capital base. 

Extraction distraction with respect to the real asset base in the economy is accomplished by low commodity and product prices coupled to high asset values. In the case of America the extraction was not with respect to natural resources but rather with respect to virtual resources.