1980s: Commerce

After nearly a decade of slow business growth and declining consumer confidence, the American economy began a period of strong growth and growing confidence beginning in 1982. The cheerleader for this decade of economic optimism was none other than the nation's president, Ronald Reagan (1911–). He told America that it was time to get government off of people's backs. He reduced government regulations, reduced taxes, and let businesses seek their maximum profit.

The 1980s were an era in which big businesses got even bigger. Many large companies sought to gain power by purchasing competitors. Corporate buyouts, mergers, and "leveraged buyouts"—in which a corporate raider gained control of a company's stock and forced its sale—became commonplace. This intense corporate competition was symbolic of the age, as an intense focus on profit and getting ahead seemed to be common among many Americans. Gordon Gecko, the evil hero of the 1987 film Wall Street, put it best when he said, "Greed is good."

For the average American, the booming economy of the 1980s meant a rise in disposable income—the money that people have to spend on items they do not need, but want. Many Americans engaged in "conspicuous consumption"—purchasing luxury goods to show others that they were doing well. Others simply spent more freely on the wide range of consumer goods available. Several successful companies capitalized on the free spending of the 1980s. The Starbucks Coffee Company expanded dramatically in the 1980s when it began offering intensely flavored (and high-priced) coffee drinks at its upscale coffee shops. Retailers like J.Crew and Land's End offered stylish clothes in mail-order catalogs that filled America's mailboxes. The Home Shopping Network—a cable TV channel—offered a steady stream of discount merchandise with aggressive selling techniques. IBM, long one of the nation's leading companies, got even bigger by selling personal computers to Americans who were just learning how to use the complicated, ever more powerful machines. In short, Americans loved spending money in the 1980s.