3 ms·

And what's the root cause in case you know it?

• doboyy 7y ago
  I'm treading into Marxist territory, but I think industrialization, technology, and their societal consequences are a large part. If I dropped the first part, there would be no downvotes.
• paganel 7y ago
  Increased inequality (both economic and social), crippling debt, horrendous health system, lack of hope (this one especially stings) etc etc. I personally am not from the States, I lived and grew up in Eastern Europe back in the ‘90s, and saw the same thing happening here, only that we used cheap alcohol instead of opioids in order to dig up our own early graves.
• SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  It's probably overdetermined, but I suspect that peaking fossil fuels and a subsequent deceleration in energy entering the economic system play an underappreciated role. To give context: Hubbert's peak, which is generally considered the most reliable predictor of fossil fuel extraction curves, predicted a peak for the US in 1970 and the world in 2010. Allow 2 years margin of error on either side and it lines up very closely with the advent of stagflation in both systems.