The 1990s, was a decade that began on January 1, 1990, and ended on

December 31, 1999. Culturally, the 1990s was characterized by the rise of
multiculturalism and alternative media. Movements such as grunge, the rave
scene and hip hop spread around the world to young people during the decade,
aided by then-new technology such as cable television and the Internet. A
combination of factors, including the continued mass mobilization of capital
markets through neoliberalism, the thawing of the decades-long Cold War, the
beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet
from the middle of the decade onwards, increasing skepticism towards
government, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and
reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world and within
countries. Many countries such as Canada and Sweden privatized much of their
economy, moving power away from governments, and more towards private
corporations. The dot com bubble of 1996-2000 brought wealth to some
entrepreneurs before its crash in 2000-2001.
There were lots of international wars, such as the wars in Congo, the Gulf, in
Chechen, in Kosovo. This, as we are going to explain in a bit, paved the way for
the USA, given that a lot of the world was fighting and the USA were more
stable than ever.
During the 1990s, a lot of countries gained independence also. For example,
the United Kingdom handed Hong Kong to china and Portugal followed with
Macau soon thereafter. This lead to fragmentation of the land and dominance,
which by themselves might not seem like much, but this took a tole on the world
and just fortified the USAs unofficial leadership over everyone else.
As expected, the USAs president Bill Clinton was very influential at this time.
Clinton tried helping negotiate peace in the Middle East and end the ongoing
wars in Yugoslavia. His promotion of international action to decrease human-
created climate change and his endorsement of advancing free trade in the
Americas also helped maintain his credibility, even through the Lewinsky
scandal.
In economics, many countries, institutions, companies, and organizations were
prosperous during the 1990s. High-income countries such as the United States,
Japan and those in Western Europe experienced steady economic growth for
much of the decade.
For the United States, under the Presidency of Bill Clinton, this prosperity was
largely due to the unexpected advent of the Internet and the explosion of
technology industries that came with it. The U.S economy experiences its
longest period of peace time economic expansion during the decade beginning
in 1991. Personal incomes doubled from the recession in 1990, and there was
higher productivity overall. After the 1996 there was a reduction of poverty, and
the Wall Street stock exchange stayed over the 10,500 mark from 1999 to 2001.
A major part of this success was also due to the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), which phased out trade barriers between the United
States, Mexico, and Canada, and as we have said before, was signed into law
by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
All seems to be going good and the only thing that comes close to bothering the
USA at this time are disasters. Hurricanes are a given in the USA as we all
know, but during the 1990s they really got to work. There are hundreds of them
in the USA every year, but more than 10 significant ones is a number that no
one will ever forget. Hurricanes in the 1990s caused millions of dollars to an
otherwise prospering country, and if we talk about earthquakes of magnitudes
upwards of 7.5 in the Richter scale, these natural disasters did even more
damage than ever predicted.
Looking back, disasters seemed to be the only thing bothering society, or were
they? To analyse this in the proper manner, we need to look into the people, the
popular culture and what transpired from it, because politics only reflect so
much of what is going on in a country.