Using 1971 as a dividing line may not be completely arbitrary but sureseems to presuppose almost purely monetary roots, especially when thedebt/capital ratio doesn't begin its run up until the early 1980sdouble slump, a real turning point for industrial capitalism in the U.S.

Theprocess of falling rate of profit and deindustrialization had begunearlier, even during the 1960s, but the latter did not become sopronounced until interest rates were used to kill double digitinflation and make the world safe for loan capital, which also helpedset of what, even in the 1980s, Business Week headlined as CasinoCapitalism.

IOW, disaster has been ongoing as the disaster ofdomestic production capital along with the employment and decent wagesthat it generated. The steep ascent in debt/capital has also been thedecent of productive capital in the U.S., has also been what, in 1972,Ernest Mandel termed a long wave phase with contractionary tonality.

The debt blowout is a phenomenon of resistance to decline.