General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I Simply Do Not Understand Obama's Support Of The TPP. [View all]truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Three things:
One) The real estate market started to take off in 1996 to 2006. Lots of jobs created in that field. By 2000, the housing bubble was keeping many people employed, real estate agents and brokers, the entire mortgage and title industry, all the trades people upgrading homes so they could be flipped, etc.
Two) Unexpectedly, the stock market took off. Analysts finally realized as an explanation for the stock market boom, that the Baby Boomers were now as age group who were coming into some wealth (as you reach your forties, and early fifties, the likelihood of parents and other older relatives dying and leaving behind their money, stocks, and houses and other property goes up.) Boomers were told that stocks and bonds might not be the best thing to do, but what else can a person do with newly minted wealth?
Three) By the end of the 1990's the dot com bubble was pervasive, in the Boston Silicon Alley area, in Silicon Valley and other spots across the nation. I watched coffee house after coffee house in the S. F. Bay Area, suddenly invigorated by the hordes of new arrivals, most under the age of 35, who were putting together valuable "com" businesses. While other young people put together not such valuable "com" businesses, which columnist Jon Carroll referred to disparagingly as "Canaries in a hurry dot com."
President Clinton was able to benefit from this new bubble, and fortunately for him, when the dot com upsurge finally collapsed, he was already one foot out the door. But before the collapse, the surge in tax revenue had helped him return the nation to a surplus in terms of governmental debt. (And part of that was his refusal to engage in a war against Iraq, telling the PNAC crowd, "No!" when he was asked to consider a war there.)