It's simply true.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSN40176

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSN09149

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBS99T999259

There's more to say, of course. The role of housing, the role of the government, using DCFs for apples-to-apples comparisons of assets, jobs, social services, and the incentives thereof, behavioral economics, and so on. If you reflexively recoil at the notion that assets have returns, however, you aren't even at the starting line.

> mentioning passive income in this context isn't even idiotic, it's a clinical diagnosis

We could use the IRS term if you prefer: "unearned income"