I think the issue is that you’re looking at this in absolute terms while the general investing world works in relative terms.
2009 was the best time to get into markets and housing (S&P in Mar 2009 was 697) – it was just a matter of having the mental fortitude to make the decision. (Not to say I did what I should, but I guess it was good enough not to sell). If you looked at solid companies in 2011/2012 after the worst part, most of them were providing dividends in excess of 4% compared to 0% in short term bonds. That’s a pretty good bet.

After the whole crisis in 2010 or so, what turned out was that yes the US has lots of issues (debt, unemployment, trade deficit, etc), but the US was the best of the worst. Europe and Japan were much worse and the only reason China didn’t collapse was they spent 25% of GDP on stimulus.

Will we have recessions – yes, will the market fall 20% in the future – yes. But the market is still one of the better places to invest. If you compare to bonds – which drop when interests rates go up. Investment properties are still ok if you can cash flow them, but those are hard to find in SD.