It's debt for money's sake, to keep the mirage running.<p>There was a multitude of factors here.
Do these statistics consider that in 1971, the "adult generation" was way smaller than others, due to world war?
And then by the 70's a lot of them was in the viet war, as wars came to end their budget tightened, the WW2 bonds were repaid, the money production that had to be turned up got turned down, basically, everything seemed to be going downhill one could say.<p>But, looking at the same time - sudden influx of new workforce by 1980's - both due to kids born in the 60's being adult now, civil rights finally becoming a thing meant more workers could join the workforce at every level, computers, mobile phones and internet expanded the market to a global one for the companies that could handle it, US companies started exporting production for some parts and there was no huge wars happening after that that would kill off a huge chunk of a working gneration.. nothing could stop the economy blastoff about to happen.<p>RE: COVID stimulus - Just wait for July, when shit really starts to go down.
Lack of tourists, unpaid loans, what were freshly bought BnB money factories are turning into black holes of debt, stuff that won't be able to reopen, people that won't be able to get rehired, tax income noticably low, universities seeing their applicant rates are lowest ever. Printing money is the best way to solve it tbh, because at the end of the day money is dependent on time, so we're basically hyperproducing borrowed time, and just like it's dependent, it isn't real. I assume either EU falls apart and we get 5-10 years of economic chaos or EU helps countries finance universal basic income and it becomes a a new normal. I put more weight on the second one.