Politically, in the US at least, we're still very much under the sway of the 80s. The rightward shift is ongoing, and it seems to me that most of our modern mainstream political spectrum would fit pretty well under the tent of the 80s and early 90s right.
S&L and the housing crash could be seen as defining the pattern that the boom/bust cycle has followed since then.
This is the real elephant in the room. With the end of the Cold War, pretty much all systemic critiques of the American Way of Life were swept away, and any request of change was shut down for ever. America (as depicted in Hollywood movies in 1985) was crowned "best society ever" and social mores were frozen in place. As globalisation started to hit harder and harder, generating a timid backlash in Seattle etc, 9/11 happened... and again any critical point of view was banished. Even "western" foreign policy is basically still the same. No wonder Reagan was all but beatified when he died.
S&L and the housing crash could be seen as defining the pattern that the boom/bust cycle has followed since then.