This declinist school among intelligentsia was accompanied by understandably disgruntled portion of our population whose livelihoods were destroyed or endangered by corporate downsizing. Key industries were seemingly being hollowed out, leaving some regions of America so economically desperate that comparisons with the Great Depression were commonplace. At both ends of our political spectrum, economic populists and nationalists emerged and, while they offered cures worse than the disease, they gained considerable support. And friends and allies around the world beseeched us to get our house in order. Just a few years later, this picture has been turned on its head.
American industry is vibrant.
U.S. unemployment is at its lowest level in over two decades. Our federal budget is about to be in surplus for the first time in three decades, and recent reports suggest there will be large surpluses as far as the eye can see, a string of surpluses not seen since the 1920s. And few speak of an America in decline. One factor undoubtedly is the human tendency to view things more starkly than they really are, both the hard times and the good times. But more fundamentally, we took the advice of our friends around the world to get our house in order.