Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Recent American History

And so the 1970s turned into the 1980s and the economy boomed because millions of people suddenly qualified for their first credit cards.

And the 1980s ended in a recession when all those bills became due.

And then in 1992 Bill Clinton was elected president and he and Al Gore were young and played rock music during their campaign and everybody decided they were tired of being poor and they’d gotten ahead of their debts a little, so they got their credit cards back out. Consumer electronics had gotten really interesting. And the economy boomed.

And America ran its consumer debt up and Clinton ran his zipper down and eventually his term limit ran out and the Republicans ran against his sexual record and we got a president who decided that if the American consumer could live on credit, the government should be able to do the same.

And then we got attacked by a group of people who don’t even seem to like each other much, let alone us, and the debtor president led us to war on the installment plan.

Now, as always, experts line up to predict the future, hoping that at least one of them will end up looking smart.

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