> People have gone through much tougher times and seemed to thrive once the bad times ended. My theory is that in fairly recent memory, in America you had rela

> People have gone through much tougher times and seemed to thrive once the bad times ended. My theory is that in fairly recent memory, in America you had relatively good times that went from the '80s up to 2008, with the '90s being a particularly tranquil time at that (no major war between Desert Storm and 9/11). So to regress from a time of security and prosperity into a bad time provides a sort of trauma of its own. Especially since, as others have pointed out, there seems to be no exit condition.