Within apocalyptic circles you get arguments about fast versus slow collapses. In fiction, to get the ball rolling, the apocalyptic writers tend to want to move things along and go for fast. Novels that talk about the slow destruction of an economy, the 1980s rustbelt used to be popular, are not usually labeled as "apocalyptic" but are thought of as situation-driven character studies.
My viewpoint is that we have had a serious leveling out, and gradually accelerating decline since somewhere are around 1973. You had Vietnam War Debt, which has since turned into everything debt, an oil crises that not withstanding a lot of fracking-hand waving seems to be back with us, environmental issues that have been shifted oversees, only to come back as global, rather than local problems, and the huge expansion of the global labor arbitrage issue - the 1980s had the shoe companies, now we have Doctors and Architects. There are other memes you could get into if you are in a gloomy mood, but one I saw recently and liked was the Old Economy Steve meme:
Old Economy Steve: A meme for frustrated Millennials
Daryl Paranada, Market Place, 28 May 2013 (hat tip: Big Picture)
2 comments:
Yes the old economy guys had it so much easier IMO. Hell even as an X'r to a point I had it easier and had I not used up about a decade in the Army would be in better shape than I am now.
The Mid to late 90's was the real turning point and if you were not already set in your dream job at that point and you were White and Male you were prolly screwed. Unless you went into the trades anyway.
Pioneer: The 90s were frustrating because it all looked so easy. But you had to be up and running by then, and you had to have chosen the correct horse to ride on. Excepting automotive mechanics there for awhile, the trades have been loosing ground to inflation since the 1970s. The only people I think who were helped by the 1990s in the long run were the 1930s babies (like my father) who got the huge boost to their retirement funds, and then retired before the rug got pulled out from under them. They were also helped by the fact that they were not the generation to get too overly enamored with tech/dot-com stocks.
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