Becoming an investor is the new American dream, just like home ownership was before

I was born behind the Iron Curtain. For people in my native Bulgaria managing money was a simple proposition with just two options — keeping savings in the state bank or stashing it under a mattress. Investing, of course, was off the table, as was accessing a line of credit. And financial education, even for economists like my father, involved a lot of fast talking to get a hold of counter-revolutionary texts like Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations.” 

The Berlin Wall fell while I was still a kid and my family’s move from Bulgaria to the Commonwealth of Virginia is a uniquely American story of opportunity. In the U.S., my…