Well, as someone who has actually worked with asset management firms and not just studied it in school, your generalizations don't really hold up or even make sense. If you don't mind me asking, what program are you at that is teaching you this stuff?

Please elaborate on how "company growth" has failed? Are you referring to firms in terms of market capitalization, which has seen unprecedented (perhaps even unsustainable) levels of growth in the last 5 years? There are many fundamental issues with our economy, but this is not one of them.

Investment has been weaker than expected over the past few years in terms of CAPEX, and there are a number of potential reasons for this. Short-term oriented goals to appease investors is a factor for many poorly managed companies, but this is not some new phenomenon -- poor corporate governance is an issue firms have had to deal with for as long as corporations have existed. Other more prevalent issues could include policy uncertainty, lack of valuable investment opportunities, tax policies/regulations, increasing global competition affecting market share, and likely most significant of all a weakness in global macroeconomic growth. There really isn't a global growth engine right now; China fulfilled that role for years, but has plateaued the last few periods.

All of these could play some role, some larger than others. Your notion that this is due to a massive, unprecedented change in shareholder behavior forcing management to suddenly hoard cash at the expense of worthwhile investment is unfounded and anecdotal at best. As I said, this is poor corporate governance, and it exists just as it has for a long time.