Excesses of the Decade(s)

Here is something I don't understand: when people talk about the "excesses of the decade" as if excess defines a given decade.

The seventies: the excesses of the decade as demonstrated by disco, coke, and lounge suits. Then again, wasn't this the decade that faced stagflation and the first major oil crisis?

The eighties: Reagnomics, leveraged buyouts, and the "greed is good" meme. But this was a decade bookended by a nation hoping for "Morning in America" and the 1987 Wall Street collapse, not to mention the Savings and Loan crisis.

The nineties: a tech boom! the New Economy! Valuation based on hits per page! Yet, the decade started in a near-recessionary state and ended with the collapse of the first tech bubble, and there were adjustment fits as defense spending was downscaled.

Now, the NYT has referenced the excesses of the past decade, i.e. the aughts, and it is true that the housing bubble has been absurd and our economy has been propped up by easy credit. However, we had a near recession near the start, faced the collapse of Worldcom and Enron in accounting scandals, and now, we are coming into a very real recessionary state.

So which is it? Are these decades excessive in their entirety, or does the economy move in a cyclical state?

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