If you look at the numbers, the U.S. standard of living (measured in terms of the hours of labor the average worker has to labor in order to obtain housing, health care, food, and transportation) peaked in the early 1970s. The U.S. economy has been going downhill ever since, at least in real terms.
Up until fairly recently, the decline was masked by politicians and executives. But the overall power of an empire is represented by a bell-shaped curve, and after the asset bubble of the late '90s, we rounded the crest of the curve (where decline is relatively slow) and fell onto the right shoulder, which is steeper.
Now the only way to maintain the illusion that Americans as a whole are getting richer is to go from one source of fiat (fake) money to another...from one asset bubble to another. We went from the stock market itself to dot-coms to real estate, like a junkie going from one drug to another, trying to shovel in virtual, pixellated cash to cover the growing trough.
But that game is just about up now.
