I'm wondering if the issue here is not 'the economy is picking up, let's invest elsewhere', but rather that investors don't have investment vehicles to put their money into other areas of the economy that need it most. The public markets are booming, and so is the tech sector, which I am guessing has a greater chance of a liquidity event than businesses in most other industries. While these two areas are doing fine, the small business sector, which is the largest portion of our economy, continues to struggle to get access to capital. Many of these small businesses could generate 20-30% returns, but investors have no way to easily get their money back out of the business - they'll never IPO, and a private acquisition is rare. This lack of liquidity in one of the largest asset classes of our economy seems to be the major bottleneck we're facing right now.<p>EDIT: I should add....the JOBS act and Crowdfunding are giving small businesses and entrepreneurs more options for finding funding, but getting a return on that investment still remains a question. In addition, crowdfunding as an industry is somewhere maybe in the billions, whereas the financial services sector is in the trillions, so the impact is still relatively small, although growing fast.