The United States Economy Actually collapsed in 1930, and then again in the 1979-1982 time frame. There was mild inflation in the twenties--when data collection was primitive--and there was greater inflation in the late 1970's. Argentina is the better example. It went through hyper-inflation. The unions (90% or so of Argentine labor) indexed all the wage rates. Indexing means, "Everyone got the same percentage pay raise, regardless of income." Argentina collapsed, the unions have more or less vanished.
The Soviet Union, and the Eastern Bloc generally, had been creating fixed percentage pay raises for all incomes for decades, and then collapsed. The upper class bureaucrats had actually been able to live pretty much like the Romanov's they had replaced, and largely with far more control over the civilization than the Romanovs likely ever dreamed to ever be necessary. The people under the Romanovs were even more impoverished than the Modern-Day Afghanis. Only Americans now find it necessary to keep the Aghanis under some nature of military control.
At any rate, the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc collapsed. Prices were so "expensive," that most of the shops were devoid of product.
Overextended credit explains it all, except that in the United States: The academics said "Nyet" in no uncertain terms, and with only a relatively benign Gerald Ford in the White House. This was the Stumble-bum actual forerunner to the real alcoholic: That Little Old Trajectory Change Maker, Ronald Reagan. 35 years ago, all of this was on paper. Instead the academics would come, to kill again. No doctorate was then or now conferred.
The collapse under Reagan would be pronounced, and lengthened into Bush I, Term I. The replay would be Bush II, Terms I and II. Reagan first jettisoned any concept of balancing the federal budget in four years, (and twice)--even making the "Trajectory Change(?)!" According to the Crazy People, There was a "Spirit of Entrepreneurship" in the deficit-bloated trajectory. Reagan led a single-sector expansion of the military procurements programming. The poor and the minorities especially: Were left behind. Hollywood and the commedians, and their babies without exception, would prosper from the sub-culture of the Murder of the Minorities in the Turfs of America: That entertainers all personally enjoyed. They kept the money.
We now know that the avenging angel, Bernie M., was sent to visit among them.
Finally, the stock market crashed in 1987, and then unemployment soared in the Bush Administration that followed. 40,000 Los Angeles gang members alone: Would commence the Great Sunday Afternoon Social, at 4:00 p.m. Sundays, at Venice Beach, In California. The phony war against Iraq, in defense of the Kuwati oil gluttons, was of insufficient magnitude to be of any economic value at that time.
Bush II came into office, and had tried to do tax cut stimulus. The Clinton Administration stock market had "Trajectory Problems" of its own: After the real entrepreneurship of Silicon Valley. With Clinton, the deficit came down,: resulting in the crash. With Bush II, Term I, The deficit exploded, but The 1986 Tax Reform, and the Clinton Adminstration Tax Cuts, had taken the spending people off of the tax rolls already. Bush II tried the Tax Cut routine twice. 19 No-Accounts were atomized on 9/11. Suddenly they were everywhere(?), apparently: In the Air(?)! They were Saudis, but even better: There were dirt-poor Afghanis completely uninvolved, and the single-sector military procurements debacle was under way. In Iraq it was done so badly that the troops even had forage for military cover.
At the end, the stock market crashed again, and the poor and minorities left behind were in on the Revenge of The Murdered. The Avenging Angel, Bernie, would be exposed. The Bush II unemployment rate soared, just like under dear old dad, Bush I Term I, Of the ReaganTrajectory that the Crazy People so-admire.
This, of course, they will likely never ever buy: Even at Disney. But the last 30 years of Western History have actually been all about Western Civilizations in a prolonged, economic collapse.
"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(What does anyone have to say, after all, about the civilization that did so much, to so many!?"
