By the middle of the twentieth century, the confidence of the United States again expressed itself. Two magical instruments inspired economic expansion at the end of the century : the junk-bond and the stock option. Over time, however, the imagination of men and women again failed to keep pace with the limitless possibilities of these devices, and a new administration, schooled in the traditional methods of concentrated wealth, sacrificed the confidence of the majority in the interests of their supporters. And the world, which only a couple years earlier, seemed so various and new, resumed many of its familiar habits. Nations retreated to old suspicions. Housing prices collapsed. Many people suffered.