Post WWII Years: Bad for the US?

How negative was the effect of the post-World War II years in the United States? America emerged from the war as the only major economic power. Its industries, supplying the war effort for the US and her allies, is what drew our economy out of the Depression...far more than the *** Deal did. The devastation of the war crippled the industrial power of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, etc. US factories went into overdrive in peace as they did during war. The war woke up a pent up need for consumer goods...and every major appliance seemed to have developed in time for that huge shhift to suburbia. Although in their waning days, the 1950's were still a time of colonialism and the US benefitted from the raw materials of these colonies as did their European "owners". The US population was still relatively low due to immigration laws from the beginning of the 20th century that kept their numbers under strict control and with a quota system to determine which countries sent us immigrants. In addtion to that relatively low population density was a land loaded with resources, one of the most favorable pieces of land for any nation...and remarkably for one so large. Add to this all the largest-by-far generation in the history of the United States, the Baby Boomers, who grew up in the only world they k***: safe, afluent, spoiled to a degree by parents who had been through depression and war and wanted to give all they could to their children in this *** age of affluence. Thus "life was good" (for many) in the 1950's and into the 1960's before the decaying of our industries and the social ills and inequalities of society finally being addressed during the civil rights movement. But the salient point here is this: the huge group of baby boomers, a group that seemed to be "empowered" from birth, grew up in the only world that they k***: A WORLD OF UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS THAT IT WOULD LAST. Lasting or not, it became the mind set that we could have it all, all that we wanted, that supply and demand did not have to exist, that affluence was open for all, that the world outside our shores could be held at bay. How ultimately did that mind set that the world would always remain our oyster, that we could always have what we wanted color the way the US sees economic issues today? How much did living in fantasyland make us ill-prepared for what happens when fantasyland closes down?>