Invest in yourself and become a master at your job. Then start looking forward for new challenges for additional money ( like an online store ).

If you have a lot of money (like 80k dollars) cash you could buy a house and fix it, later on you can sell it for more money and make profit.

maybe, actually if you are stupid and don't have a job or have a job that's 9 to 5. You can be called stupid IMO because you don't have the freeedom. You ain't financial free.

You depend on the paycheck you get every month. If you have a bad job where you earn 20k a year and don't raise your skills well you ain't smart IMO.

The american economy is growing, but what happens when your president is a guy that wants to buy land that's miles away from his country?
You should not look forward on what the media says about the US economy. Just look at the numbers and be objective.

I suggest you to look for the GDP, inflation and unemployment rate. Those are the things you can trust in 

Well, It is the world order we live in. You are born, raised at a strange system that teaches us how to 'work' as a worker. We ain't raised as 'thinkers'. I think that's a big problem and that puts us to the world we live now on.
The people who realize things and actually 'think' is a small group (estimated 2% of the whole world population). They are the rich who decide most things we do right now. It isn't only politics or laws what decides.

The rich decides aswell, they decide the stock market, indexes etc.. It varies depending on how It's generally on the market. Life isn't easy but also not hard, It is what YOU make of it. If you have a good job where you earn 100k a year and live in a country with low inflation, well who gives a damn about the prices. You need to invest in yourself and need to build an empire to survive. That's how it works these days.

For example, you earn 100k dollars a year. You spend 12k to your rent, 4.8k for food, 2.4k for clothes and an additional 10k for vacations a year.
Well with this calculation, you save 70.8k a year.

As I mentioned before, just invest in yourself and your money. Get better at your job, get certificates and follow courses if needed.