David Martin

The Twin I-Beams of Investment Success

A fine analysis.
One more factor needs mentioning though.
The US is based on cheap oil and energy.
The cheap and plentiful supplies have been used up, and the exporting nations are increasing their own use rapidly, as well as countries like China and India.
This is going to hit the US very hard indeed for many years.
Effectively we will be moving from the gold standard and fiat currency to the oil standard, which may confound attempts to inflate away debts.
Overall the impact is likely to be greater than the 1929 crash - many fundamental costs were still reducing then, now they are going up, and much investment based on the premise of cheap oil will be worthless.