>>245650
>>Without a constant stream of endless bailouts and government subsidy and face it, outright fraud, our economy would have already collapsed years ago. You'd likely be dead by now too.
A few years ago I was surprised to see that the entire economy almost collapsed in '58. That's not widely known under all the propaganda about the golden age of American life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1958#:~:text=The%20Recession%20of%201958%2C%20also,worldwide%20economic%20downturn%20in%201958.&text=It%20was%20the%20most%20significant,that%20only%20lasted%20eight%20months
There were many major factors in the decline that exerted a growing downward pressure on production and employment, resulting in a general reduction of economic activity.[1]
New car sales took a sharp dive as middle-class consumers decided to keep their cars for longer instead of upgrading after a few years.[3] Auto sales fell 31% over 1957, making 1958 the worst auto year since World War II.[1] In just three years, car sales fell from almost 8 million purchases in 1955 to 4.3 million purchases in 1958.[3] In an effort to overcome declining auto sales, one of the hardest hit sectors of the slump, the Beyer DeSoto dealership of St. Louis put its salesmen on duty for 64 hours straight, as part of a sell-a-thon that raised sales 73%.[2]
Housing construction slowed due to higher interest rates in 1955 and 1956. By 1957, new house construction had fallen to about 1.2 million units.[3]
There was a gradual decrease in incoming business of capital goods industries,[1] which resulted in the ending of an expansive boom. The initial trouble began in 1956 with a deceleration in business planning for replacement of equipment and expansion of manufacturing facilities, resulting in a drop in new orders for equipment.[3] This created a widening gap between the supply and the use of industrial capacity.[1] Federal Reserve economists believed that the administration had contributed to the recession by cutting back on Department of Defense purchases in 1957.[3]
