Quote:
Originally Posted by audiman08
No, I actually have a degree in history. Not all was well following World War II. There were two general recessions in the 1950s, in '53 and '58. The 1960s was torn by the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, manufacurers began to send operations oversees en masse. The mid to late 1980s and early 1990s were okay, due to financial prosperity and the fall of the Soviet Union. The Clinton years were good financially, but we failed to address Islamic Radicalism in time. Thus, I would say that the U.S. had its' real zenith about 50 years ago (1960), ever since then it's been a (mostly down-hill) roller-coaster.
|
If U recall corporations in the late 80's got lean and mean by getting rid of the dead wood middle management personnel as a means of becoming competitive with Nippon. This by the 90's started to pay off for corporations.
Also you are referring to the lessening of military expenditure due to not having an adversarial relationship with the USSR anymore.
However what generally is not seen is the revaluation of depressed assets once the Cold War and the threat of anhiliaton was over and then there was the coming of age of technlogy, which increased the productivity of the American worker. Not to mention the sales of that tech to other nations.
If you recall there was a thing called the "END OF HISTORY"
One might view the Clinton years as a huge sigh of relief that we had won the Cold War..as such America turned inward by not paying as much atttention to foreign affairs. We also had what I term as an after the war party atomsphere after the rigours of the Cold War. So Clinton was the perfect Party Animal President for the times.