1980-1989 The Dawn of a New Age
It was the beginning of the New World the beginning of the information age. Perhaps never had the mood of a decade reversed itself so totally. The 1980s began with the worst U.S. inflation in 60 years in the deepening dread of nuclear annihilation.
As the 1980s came to an end inflation was making a last and unsuccessful assault on an economy that had found new resources, the Berlin wall was tumbling down, and the Soviet empire was dissolving.
The Cold War was over and the West won!
Ronald Reagan reversed the direction of government policy recasting social programs and cutting taxes. Unmatched by spending reductions, however, those cuts and deficits soaring to unheard-of highs, and the double-digit inflation of 1980 was cured only by double-digit unemployment in 1982.
The economy revived, but an outside share of the benefits seemed to flow to Wall Street. Mergers proliferated wildly, mostly, it seemed, for the enrichment of a few financial manipulators.
But unlike in the irrationally exuberant 1920s, disaster did not strike as it did in the depression that started in 1929. Those stocks fell even faster on October 19, 1987, than the hat in 1929, they bounced back higher than ever, setting the stage for the roaring bull market of the 90s. Something fundamental had happened to the boom and bust cycle of the 20th century.
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