A Simpleton’s attempt at providing some marcoencomic perspective.

Introduction

In the emergence of the post-war economy, North America experienced a period of tremendous growth from post-war industrialization. Productivity was booming as manufacturing technology used in wartime manufacturing found its way into factories of all sorts, enabling production of commercial goods at scale. With this booming industrialization, employment shot up, wages went up, the middle class grew, people had disposable income to buy these commercial goods, and a cyclical model of growth materialized.

Arguably, we have never before experienced a time when such a large portion of society were at the prime…