Yea, that last bit there “a few generations” is the rub. Seems like nobody is willing to wait even half a generation these days, and that’s how long big investments will take to even to pay off.
On the other hand when we stop making big investments we often get ten or twenty years before it starts to affect the larger society, and ten to twenty years worth of the people who made the cut are actually dead and never see the downside at all. Even worse its pretty easy to make sure that those currently in charge (whether the rich, or just home owners, or whatever) get a positive benefit for those ten to twenty years so the breakeven point gets even further out.
