Well, let's be fair on that- rockets are notorious for blowing up a fair amount until they finally get everything to work dependably.

morningstar's star rating imo is a dumpster fire.
VFIAX (vanguard sp500 admiral) is also a 5 star.
VFFSX is effectively the same pool of money. 4 star.

Y...
Separately, something has give with housing prices:
"The average age for first-time homebuyers had hit an all-time record high of 40 years old, according to the National Association of Realtors."
...

.... This is a very interesting read from 2015. Mass deportations will absolutely accelerate the problems with population decline.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2015/02/17/population-decline-and-the-great-economic-reversal/

What I am fixing to say doesn't change my current concern about the unwinnable situation we are creating for our young people. This is just a random off the cuff incoherent set of thoughts I had after reading the Forbes article and more about the far range future, if there is one.
...
The author of the Forbes article seems to be wringing his hands over demographic worldwide shifts. I am more optimistic, or have been until recently. (I cannot predict outcomes if time moves backward along with decreased fertility rates. I suppose birth control would need to be outlawed completely to keep wages at poverty levels.) Assuming a more forward projected future, I just see positive change for the human experience. Who says the measure of life is a job? Maybe, with refusal to morph the cast system into something more fun and satisfying, meaningless exchanges of work for subsidence might be unchangeable. I want to believe we just have limited vision about the result of our more powerful, sometimes pessimistic and frightening, imagination.
Coincidentally, this came out in the W.Post today:

The biggest careers that have now vanished, according to data

DrVenture said:
Thanks for that link. It is important to note that the article I linked is 10 years old, so way behind the curve on the technology.
My main takeaway is that demographics like this are extremely hard (impossible?) to reverse, minus immigration. People having less children, no children, and waiting longer to have children. In our economy, the consumer drives growth. Can that be replaced by AI or robotics? Maybe, it implies higher wages for everyone, due to labor shortfalls?
Anyhow, you make many good points.

The [Vanguard 500] fund has historically used securities lending to generate additional income to offset expenses.

Every so often one finds a fund at Vanguard that one can't get elsewhere,
at least without ponying up a seven (or higher) figure amount.

In early Q2 2023, the USAA Mutual Funds will be rebranded as Victory Funds. There will be no changes to the funds’ investment objectives, the investment teams managing the funds or their respective investment processes due to the change in the product branding, and there is no action required on the part of current investors. The Ticker symbols and Cusips are not changing.

@FD1000: You came here, took advantage of the freedom and financial opportunities of OUR country, made your money, and now root for the destruction of the very country that gave you so much.
PLEASE GO BACK WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM. JUST TAKE YOUR DAMNED MONEY AND GO.

the best, FXAIX
The best for you and undeniably one of the best. But simply the best, better than all the rest?
...
ETFs offer greater accessibility at possibly lower trading cost (bid/ask spread vs. TF at many non-Fidelity brokerages). Institutional investors and traders may have difficulty using FXAIX with its restriction of two round trips within 90 days (trading rights are suspended if this is exceeded).
In terms of raw performance, FXAIX is arguably not even the best. Fidelity's Flex fund FDFIX, used by Fidelity's robo advisor, has a better 5 year return (it hasn't been around for 10 years yet). On the DIY front, USPRX ($100K min) has a better 10 year return. Though technically not an S&P 500 fund, Lipper includes it in its S&P500 index category.
Different strokes for different folks. "Best" here can be mathematically quantified by constructing ...

I was looking at our taxable accounts, and noticing the returns on our various tech-sector funds, and so I asked myself, why even buy the S&P 500 these days--not that I am actually in the market for adding much of anything to the taxable at this point.
If I was 20-30 years younger, why not just buy a tech fund--or four in the case of my taxable (because I like baskets)--and rearrange the rest of the deck chairs to suit my druthers, i.e., risk tolerance?

@crash
Ignore injustice, masked gov't Gestapo violence, the ethically rudderless Fuhrer, etc.
These are the very reasons why I think the US's time as a global leader is limited. We have destroyed any credibility we had with the rest of the world who counted on us for the Rule of Law, regulations that were enforced and not at one man's whim transparent credit markets and an independent Federal Reserve.
We are close to a Government like China where the only thing that counts is one man's daily ideas. At least in China you can count on Xi to do what is generally in the long term interest of the party. here all you get is what is in Trump's interest.