Mutual Funds and the decline of the middle class

Note to future historians...
In your studies of my time, you may have come across references to a category of society known as the "Middle Class" that was very prominent in the Unites States during the 20th Century, but which became extinct in the early 21st Century.

You may have wondered what led to the decline of this segment... How did so many "middle class" people slip back into the "lower class" so quickly?

The answer may surprise you... It was due to something known as a "Mutual Fund".

The concept of investing in companies had existed long before the 20th Century.  Wealthy individuals would invest money in the "stock" of corporations in hopes of reaping a large return on their investment.  In general, the investors paid little attention to what the corporation did - their primary concern was to make money.  If the natives of a small island on the other side of the world were exterminated in the course of business - the investors didn't really care.  As long as the "activities" of the corporation didn't directly harm the investors, all was well.  What happened in the Indies stayed in the Indies. 

Investing was pretty much limited to the wealthy... Few "normal" people had the funds to invest, and if they did have the funds the risk was very high because they could only invest in a small number of corporations.  Then came the Mutual Fund.  The Mutual Fund looked like a great idea... a bunch of "middle class" people could pull their money into a "fund", and that "fund" could be used to purchase stock in many companies.  By spreading out the investments, the risk of loss was lowered and the risk of gain increased.

"Middle class" people loved the idea and invested all that they could in these "Mutual Funds"... and for awhile everything was great... For awhile.

Unfortunately, the nature of "Mutual Funds" divorced the investors even further from the actions of the corporations.  Few investors had any clue of which corporations they were investing in.  They only cared that the corporations were profitable... and they had no idea how those profits were generated.

The stage was now set, and the script unfolded as could be expected...  Unbeknown to the "middle class", they had invested in the very companies for which they worked - and those companies - with completely anonymous investors - to increase their profits - started offshoring the middle class jobs to poorer countries around the world.  The corporations had no idea who their investors really were, so they had no idea (or care) whether or not their actions harmed their investors.

No jobs, no middle class.  Mystery solved.