That's not strictly true. The suburbs were rolled out, interstate highway travel became widespread, commercial air travel took off, computing was just beginning, television started to proliferate, retail expanded, air conditioning became widespread...there were numerous technological expansions and improvements in quality of life.

Sound money ensured that money was invested in things that actually produced productivity improvements. We coasted on the residual returns of investments from earlier eras, but productive investment, I would argue, has declined since those earlier decades. ROIs on loaned money have declined in the zero interest rate era.