Half of America’s public companies have vanished. The best growth in the country moved behind a velvet rope. And the rope was not put there by the market — it was put there by law.
Economic War Room Episode 408 — Locked Out. New episode airs Thursday, August 6 at EconomicWarRoom.com.It used to cost a dime to buy the future
When I was starting out, an ordinary American could buy a piece of the future. In December 1980, a young computer company out of Cupertino went public. You could buy a share of Apple for twenty-two dollars. It was worth about $1.8 billion — small, by today’s standards.
Here is why that mattered. Adjust that twenty-two-dollar share for Apple’s five stock splits, and an ordinary buyer’s true cost was about a dime a share. Six years later, a little software company called Microsoft did the very same thing at twenty-one dollars a share. Split-adjusted across nine splits, that was roughly seven cents.
Both companies were young. Both were small. And both were open to you and me. A schoolteacher, a plumber, a retiree could own that ride. That is the American promise — ownership open to everyone.
But that door is quietly closing.
The ride ordinary Americans used to be allowed to take. Split-adjusted IPO cost versus market price. Prices as of early July 2026 — check current quotes before you use these numbers.Half the public companies are gone
In 1996, roughly eight thousand companies were listed on U.S. stock exchanges. Today the number is closer to four thousand two hundred. In a single generation, we lost about half of our public companies.
Think about how strange that is. The economy got bigger. The population got bigger. Entire industries were born that did not exist back then. And yet the number of companies you are actually allowed to buy got cut roughly in half. Measured per person it is worse still — on the order of thirty public companies per million Americans in 1996, down to something closer to fourteen today. The Wilshire 5000, named for the number of stocks it tracked, peaked near seventy-five hundred names in 1998 and now holds fewer than four thousand. They may have to rename it.
Now let me be straight with you: these figures are contested. Serious scholars argue over how much of the drop is mergers and acquisitions versus companies that simply never went public. The foundational research here is “The U.S. Listing Gap” by Craig Doidge, G. Andrew Karolyi, and René Stulz, which attributes roughly 46% of the gap to an unusually high delisting rate and 54% to a low rate of new listings. Go read it. Verify it yourself. But the direction is not in dispute. The public market is shrinking, and it is shrinking here in a way it is not shrinking abroad. Economists call that the American listing gap, and it is unique to us.
We built the greatest capital markets on earth — then quietly started closing them to our own people.So where did all the companies go?
They stayed private. On purpose.
Part of the reason is regulation. After the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley. The intentions were good — restore trust after Enron. But it made going public, and staying public, far more expensive. Legal bills. Audits. Compliance departments. Quarterly pressure from Wall Street.
I will be honest with you: the decline actually started before Sarbanes-Oxley. Regulation is not the whole story — as René Stulz lays out in “Is the U.S. Public Corporation in Trouble?”— but the cost of being public is very real.
The second reason is bigger. There is now an ocean of private money willing to fund companies for years. Venture capital and private equity will write enormous checks. A company can grow up completely without ever ringing the opening bell — no quarterly earnings circus, no showing its hand to rivals. There is even a word for the giants that result: unicorns, private companies worth a billion dollars or more. They got that name because they were supposed to be mythical. They are not rare anymore.
Wall Street tried to paper over this with workarounds. You may remember SPACs — blank-check companies that took startups public through a side door. For a couple of years they were everywhere. Then many of them blew up and left small investors holding the bag. A gimmick is not a solution.
SpaceX: the whole run happened in private
Consider the most valuable rocket company on earth. For twenty-four years, SpaceX grew up entirely in private hands — from a startup Elon Musk gave less than a ten-percent chance of surviving, to a giant valued around $210 billion in mid-2024 and roughly $400 billion a year later. For that entire climb, ordinary Americans could not buy a single share. Not on any exchange. Not legally. Not unless you were already wealthy.
Then, this past June, SpaceX finally went public — the largest stock offering in history. It priced at $135 a share, raising about $75 billion at a valuation near $1.77 trillion. By the close of its first trading day the market value was above $2 trillion.
Think about that. The run from a garage to two trillion dollars happened in private. By the time you and I could finally buy a share, the ride was over. We didn’t get the gains. We got the invoice — at the very top.
Private hands captured the climb. The public was handed the keys after the rocket had already launched.Nor is this only about famous rockets. Uber changed how the world moves — and before it ever went public it raised more than $20 billion privately. By the time you and I could buy it, in May of 2019, Uber priced at $45 a share. Then it fell, and it stayed below that offering price for years. The patient investor eventually did fine. But the early cream was long gone. Same story with Lyft, which listed days earlier and sank.
That is another version of the Tale of Two Narratives. One narrative for the connected few who get in early. Another for the rest of us, who get whatever’s left.
The best growth in America now sits behind a paywall
Consider a single statistic. By one widely cited estimate there are now more than seventeen thousand private American companies with over a hundred million dollars in annual revenue — against fewer than four thousand public ones. Roughly four to one. Estimates of the private-company universe vary by methodology, so treat the ratio as directional rather than precise. But no serious analyst disputes which way the arrow points.
Big American companies you can’t buy versus the ones you can. Source: Franklin Templeton Institute estimate; SEC. Verify for yourself.Why does this keep me up at night? Because the stock market is how a middle-class family outruns inflation. It’s how you turn a paycheck into a nest egg, and a nest egg into a legacy. If the best growth leaves the public market — and you are barred from the private one — then the greatest wealth-building engine in history is being switched off for ordinary people.
Who built the wall? Congress did.
The rule is called the Accredited Investor standard, and it traces back to our securities laws from the 1930s. To qualify, you generally need one of two things: a net worth over one million dollars, not counting your home — or an income of $200,000 a year, $300,000 for a couple.
Read that again and let it sink in. To access the best deals in America, you have to already have wealth.
The government’s logic is that wealthy people can afford to take the risk. But look at what the rule actually does. It reserves the highest-growth opportunities for the people who need them least, and it locks out the very people trying to build wealth in the first place.
Picture a young nurse and her husband, a firefighter. They’ve saved. They’ve invested. They’ve done everything right. But because their net worth hasn’t crossed a line drawn decades ago and rarely updated, the law says they are not sophisticated enough to even be offered these deals. Meanwhile, a lottery winner who has never read a balance sheet qualifies automatically.
That is not protection. That is a paywall built by law, with good people arbitrarily locked outside for the wrong reasons.
I have been saying this for a very long time. Back in my Templeton days I watched the number of public companies begin to shrink and could see where it was heading. On this very show, back in 2019, in an episode called Democratic Capitalism, I said the cream of investment gains was being reserved for the wealthy — by law. My view then is my view now. The goal is not to eliminate capitalism. The goal is to help everyone become wealthy. That is not a left idea or a right idea. It is an American idea. A nation of owners is a free nation. A nation of renters is something else.
What happens when you reserve the best assets for the rich
The wealth gap widens — and the numbers are stunning. According to the Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts, the top one percent of Americans hold roughly a third of all household wealth. The bottom half of the entire country holds about two and a half percent. In the stock market itself, the top ten percent own something close to ninety percent of all equities — and the wealthy own essentially all of the private equity.
And being locked out is not a small thing — it costs real money. Over the last twenty-five years, private equity as an asset class has outperformed the S&P 500 by a meaningful margin. Averages hide a great deal, and the best returns go to the best managers, so treat the headline spread with caution. But the pattern is clear: that locked room is where much of the growth has been.
Look at what has happened at the very top. In 1989 America had somewhere around sixty-six billionaires. Today there are more than nine hundred. I don’t begrudge anyone honest success — this show celebrates the entrepreneur. But when gains concentrate this fast, we have to ask how the game got tilted. A big part of the tilt is who gets to invest, and in what.
Follow the money to its source: the Cantillon engine
Here is the part most people never see. Why do those who own assets keep pulling away from those who earn wages? A big part of the answer is our fiat money system.
When Washington and the Federal Reserve create new money, it does not reach everyone at the same time or in the same way. There is a name for this. It is called the Cantillon Effect, named for Richard Cantillon, the economist who figured it out back in 1755. In plain English: whoever gets the newly created money first gets to spend it first — before prices rise.
Who is first in line? Banks. The government. And people who already own assets. Who is last? Wage earners, savers, and folks on a fixed income. By the time the new money reaches them, prices have already gone up. They get the inflation without the gains.
Look at the scale. In 1990 the M2 money supply was about three trillion dollars. Today it is roughly twenty-three trillion. Since 2008 alone the money supply is up more than 150 percent; real wages are up a small fraction of that. New money flows to those closest to the spigot and lifts stocks and real estate — assets the wealthy already own.
New money reaches the top first. It is not mainly about tax rates — it is about who stands nearest the money printer.Some call the people who master this game Cantillon-aires. They don’t get rich by building a better product or serving a customer. They get rich by standing closest to the money as it is created — buying assets today with dollars that will be worth less tomorrow. It is wealth by proximity to the printer. And then the rules bar you from the very same assets.
That is the quiet injustice buried inside the accredited-investor rule: your paper dollars lose value at the same time private assets gain it, and you are not allowed to own the second thing.
The good news: there is a bill in Congress right now
On July 2, 2026, Congressman Troy Downing of Montana — a former state securities and insurance commissioner who knows this world from the inside — introduced the Informed Investor Access Act, H.R. 9574. Representatives Mike Lawler of New York and Tim Moore of North Carolina joined as original cosponsors. It has been referred to the House Financial Services Committee.
The bill text amends Section 2(a)(15) of the Securities Act of 1933, and it does something simple and powerful. It creates a brand-new path into private investments — not based on how much money you already have, but on whether you are getting advice from a registered, qualified professional.
That distinction is the heart of it. A registered investment adviser is legally bound by a fiduciary duty to act in your best interest. A broker-dealer must follow the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest. In other words: a professional who is accountable, and on your side. Under this bill, that professional becomes your key to the door. Wealth would no longer be the only way in.
As Congressman Downing put it, building wealth should not be reserved only for those who are already wealthy; the current framework, he says, is a self-reinforcing barrier. And this is not a fringe idea. Supporting organizations include the American Securities Association, Bond Dealers of America, the Financial Services Institute, the Financial Technology Association, the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives, the Investment Advisers Association, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That is real momentum.
Picture what changes the day it becomes law. A schoolteacher sits down with her advisor and, for the first time, is allowed to put a small slice — maybe two or three percent — into the kind of company that used to be reserved for the powerful. Not betting the farm. Not chasing a fad. A measured stake in American innovation. Multiply that by millions of families and you begin to rebuild an ownership society.
Trump Accounts point in the same direction — and show the limit
Here is something else worth watching. Trump Accounts launched on July 4, seeding eligible newborns with a thousand dollars, invested in the market and growing tax-deferred until adulthood. I love the idea of raising up a whole generation of young investors. Check out our July 21st post, Born to Own.
But notice what those accounts buy: a public index fund tracking the S&P 500 — the very market that is now missing the early-stage growth we’ve been talking about. The logic runs in exactly the same direction. If we believe ordinary Americans should own a piece of the future, then let’s give them access to where the future is actually being built. Public markets for stability. A guided door into private markets for growth.
Run it through the filter: Liberty, Security, Values
Liberty means the freedom to build wealth, not just watch others build it. Security means a strong middle class that a hostile power cannot fracture. Values means we lift people up rather than tear the successful down. A nation of owners checks all three boxes. A locked-out nation checks none.
Because a people who come to believe the system is rigged against them lose faith in the system itself — and a nation that loses faith in itself is a nation ripe for conquest. That is exactly why our adversaries watch this Battle Space so closely. What we see as a marketplace, our enemies view as a Battle Space.
Now let me be fair and clear-eyed about the risk
Private markets carry real risk. They are less liquid — your money can be tied up for years. They are less transparent. And yes, you can lose money. I am not telling you to bet the farm. I never would.
But the answer to risk is not to lock ordinary people out entirely. The answer is to let people get help from a qualified, accountable guide. A good advisor doesn’t just say yes or no. They size the position — maybe one to five percent of a portfolio, never the whole thing. They match it to your age, your goals, and your stomach for risk. They make sure that if a single deal goes to zero, your family is still just fine. That is the difference between reckless gambling and responsible ownership.
That is exactly the model we teach at the NSIC Institute — the National Security Investment Consultant Institute — training advisors to see both the opportunities and the threats in the same market. This bill puts that guide to work for every American, not just the wealthy few.
And while we work to open that gate, we protect the other side of the barbell. Longtime readers know the strategy from Pirate Money: transactional gold and silver — real, sound money — as your anchor. Hard assets on one side. Growth and innovation on the other. In economic warfare, you play offense and defense at the same time.
Your four-point battle plan
- Get educated. Understand the risks of private markets before you ever invest a dollar.
- Make your voice heard. This is the step nearly every one of us can take right now. Look up your member of Congress, call the office, send the email. Ask them to co-sponsor and support the Informed Investor Access Act, H.R. 9574. Tell them wealth should not be the only key to opportunity in America. One message from a constituent carries more weight than you think. They count them — so make yours count.
- When the door opens, get a guide. Work with a qualified, registered advisor. Never go it alone on this.
- Size it right. Any private investment should be a small slice of a diversified plan.
Here is the honest part: most of us are not accredited investors today, so until this bill becomes law, steps three and four are still closed to us. Step two is the one that opens them.
Watch Episode 408
Locked Out: The Private-Market Wall Between You and the Next Apple airs Thursday, August 6. Tune in at EconomicWarRoom.com, where you can also download the FREE Economic Battle Plan™ that walks you through exactly how to contact your representatives and what to say.
Then share the episode with someone you love. We built the Battle Plan so no American has to face this Battle Space alone.
The paywall between you and the next great American company was built by law. And what was built by law can be torn down by We the People — just as President Reagan called on the Soviet Union to tear down that wall in Berlin.
Get educated. Make your voice heard. And when the door opens, get a guide. This matters. Together we can preserve our Liberty for the next generation.
Kevin D. Freeman, CFA, D.Sc. (h.c.)
Host, Economic War Room
Important disclosures. The Economic War Room does not provide personalized investment advice. Nothing in this article is a recommendation to buy or sell any specific investment. Private markets are risky, illiquid, and not right for everyone; please talk to a qualified professional about your own situation. Figures cited here come from public sources and are approximate — several are actively contested among researchers, and we have flagged those. As always: verify them yourself.
