Finally found that article that explains the debt economy....Now I am sad and scared.

Really I need to not read Metafilter as soon as I wake up, it takes an hour off my day easily. An hour I could spend at the gym instead of getting panicked by financial forecasting. Oh well, later when I have no money and have to eat those plastic wrapped old vegetables with brown spots that they sell for 50 cents I am sure I will look svelte and have nicely hollowed cheek-bones. Why am I worrying now, we're headed for a massive recession!

More than a decade of economic and financial-market chaos followed, as the dollar remained the international currency but traded without an absolute measure of value. Inflation rose not just in the United States but around the world, grinding down the worth of many securities and brokerage firms. The Federal Reserve pushed interest rates into double digits, setting off two global recessions, and new international standards and methods for measuring inflation and floating exchange rates were established to replace the gold standard. After 1975, the United States would never again post an annual merchandise trade surplus. Such high-value, finished-goods-producing industries as steel and automobiles were no longer dominant. The new economy belonged to finance, insurance, and real estate—FIRE.

It's a long complicated article but well worth the read.