A deal was struck with the aliens who crashed at Roswell (those guys were NOT too bright...) that they would send down armies of Consumer Androids who would voraciously BUY-BUY-BUY!!!
The result was that the U.S. economy soared well into the late 1960s, but, as always, there is no free lunch; the alien droids bred with ordinary, hard-working, heavy smoking Americans and they produced Gen-X.... (very fat...)