The Governance Revolution

Chapter 4 The Glow Following World War II

New expectations, new wages, and new options created by World War II mobilization and victory sparked a post-war economic boom. Through the 1950s and into the 1960s, the United States enjoyed the most prosperous period in its history. The new ideas and entitlements introduced during the war, however, also sowed the seeds of issues board members deal with today as we grapple with funding the social safety net and deal with both funding retirement plans and working with the resulting huge investment funds in their guise as institutional investors. It is remarkable to see both how well efforts to stabilize markets and rebuild confidence in our system worked given the enormous size of our capital markets ...