Dear Howie Eastern,
I agree with much of what you say...However,I take a more philosophical view....The Post War Era was a World in which the States for one reason or another had managed to accumulate six sevenths of the Worlds Wealth,they even had more Scots Whisky in bond than the Scots!...
Great!you were the Arsenal of Democracy,Thank The Good Lord!.....This had been the first truly World Wide War,most of Eur-Asia had been devastated,there was a limitless demand for your Food and Manufactured Articles,to exaggerate events even more,the mass production of War Materiel had given birth to inventions and assembly line methods that could provide white goods unthought of ten years earlier.
We then had a succession of remarkable improvements keeping our Factories busy...Jet Planes,transistors,computors...It goes on and on,but the Merry go Round has stopped,there are not many developments in the Pipeline....To complicate matters further,what once only a few Western Nations could do,now globalisation enables anyone and everyone to do...But reflect,on the broader time scale,we are really returning to normalcy,we are travelling sideways,and when central Bank Interventions are removed will be going Down,its Cyclic!
Reflect also that China for most of Civilized time had far and away the greatest Economy in the World,and produced most of the great Inventions that enabled us to surge forward in the Fifteenth Century!