> The common read of the boom in the 1950s is that America leveraged its success in WW2 into a global imperial economy, exporting its goods everywhere in the world.
I absolutely agree that the US massively benefited from WW2. For one, no war was fought on the American mainland (as opposed to, say, Europe and Japan, which were levelled). We benefitted from being the arms dealer. The post-1945 world order was reconstructed or built to our benefit. All of this is true.
But where did this wealth land? Wealth and income inequality actually shrank from 1945 to the 1970s and has exploded since [1][2].
> The combination of massive manufacturing expansion at home during WW2 ...
And why was there manufacturing then but manufacturing has been hollowed out now? Where does the money go now? We had way more capital controls in the post-WW2 era. Now all the money just seems to speculate on real estate. And this is something Adam Smith and Karl Marx agreed on: landlords are parasites on the economy.
> The fall of the Soviet Union ushered in what I would consider more of a golden age, overseen by Clinton in the US
Clinton was a disaster. I suspect you feel this way because you came of age in the 1990s maybe? The 1994 crime bill, financial deregulation (eg repealing Glass-Steagall), welfare "reforms", replacing federal programs with state block grants, effectively ending public housing (ie the Faircloth Amendment), NAFTA, three strikes rules, the list goes on. It was the Clinton administration where the so-called "New Democrats" divorced themselves from the labor movement and decided they wanted that sweet, sweet corporate PAC money.
If you opposed what the current Republican governments are doing and you're scratching your head wondering why there's no real opposition, you can point the finger directly at Bill Clinton as to why. Obama was also a generational missed opportunity here but I digress.
> In the earlier era you’re lionizing, there was rationing throughout the US.
... because of US imperialism, specifically the US support for Israel.
> I’d characterize it as blowback from our Middle East policy
No argument here. But our Middle East policy was US imperialism. Also, it's worth noting that we directly created bin Laden as one of the mujahadeen we used as a foil against the Soviets in Afghanistan as payback for Vietnam (basically).
[1]: https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide...
[2]: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/exploding-wealth-inequality-u...