This country has become fat,lazy and complacent in the last 27 years. Easy credit, everyone happy as long as the easy money kept flowing and the capability to borrow and flip debt instruments wrapped around in exotic packages was going well. Our best and brightest minds were led by the allure of easy money at Wall street instead of working towards inventing the cure for cancer etc.. Since we did not value them as inventors and scientists but as speculators instead. Now we pay the price and the same people who were happy riding this express elevator up are upset as it plummets down. Bling Bling,Rapstars,Paris hilton were the heros of the new younger Americans who were raised in front of the TV set by parents too busy trying to make more money so they can beat the Jonses. Everyone is trying to find some enemy to blame but the guilty party is close by, just look in the mirror and stop trying to find someone to blame.
Your time periods are off, it's only really the last decade that things got fucked up there and in the west as a whole. The 80s and 90s were a vast improvement on the 70s.