Like the Japanese in 1992, Americans could be witnessing the bursting of their own bubble economy. Even while both presidential candidates court the middle class with promises that the affluent lifestyle will go on, the end of easy money could mean steep price rises in the cost of living during the four years left in this century. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of American Soul (Mercury House, 1996).

In 1992 the super-affluent Japanese went into shock as their bubble economy burst. Four years later, Americans may now be seeing our own bubble economy bursting.

A bubble economy means easy money. And easy money, like water from a faucet, keeps flowing so long as the hand on the tap lets it flow. John Maynard Keynes began his weighty two-volume 1930 study "The Theory of Money" with the sentence: "All money is fiat money" -- money printed by the government and trusted by people. So long as that money doesn't lose value, the government will keep printing more and more of it, letting the flow just go on and on.

In both the Japanese and American bubble economies the golden flow worked like the Wizard of Oz's magic. More and more money poured into circulation. Despite a few surges, the inflation rate remained miraculously low. In both countries credit cards sprouted up like mushrooms after a heavy rain. Private and public debt soared. But who cared when people could see houses galore being built, restaurants filled and spreading everywhere, energy affordable even if expensive, rising medical and education costs cushioned by all kinds of crafty devices designed to ease middle-class minds?

The Japanese are now coming out of their longest recession since their big boom began during the Korean War almost a half-century ago. What then became their bubble economy bubbled along merrily for six years from 1986 to 1992. The current U.S. bubble economy is now also almost six years old, with the stock market bubbling merrily from December 1994 through June 1996.

During this time, the U.S. stock market gave surer yields than Las Vegas gaming tables. Exports soared, credit was plentiful, interest rates low, and the U.S. became the world's biggest job-creating machine. It didn't seem to matter that most jobs were in categories like bars and restaurants because cutting-edge high-tech industries were flourishing. And farmers, many of whom suffered terrible foreclosures in the 1980s, made good money all the while feeding much of the world at affordable prices.

Now jittery stock markets are sending signals that we've come to the end of our own bubble economy. And like Japan, we could also be coming to the end of a boom period dating back to the early post-War period. If so, Americans will soon feel it through steep cost-of-living increases unlike any we've experienced in this century.

The American bubble economy worked so long as people were able to afford the basics -- food, energy, housing, medical care and education. The last two have been going up for years. Energy soared last May but then came down a bit. With interest rates low, new housing starts were evident throughout the nation. And food remained cheap as it historically has been. Yet just last week the Wall Street Journal featured an ominous article that supermarket food prices are "surging" for the first time in years and even steeper prices may lie ahead.

In its boom heyday of the 1980's, everything in Japan was expensive but average monetary income was so high that people were able to buy mounds of consumer goods in the millions of shops one sees all over that country. In the U.S., the basics were much cheaper. For all their burdens, most middle-class people benefited from rising wages as well as generous investment returns and found plenty of disposable income to spend on recreation, notably tourism.

For years public figures have been warning that Americans have been living an illusionary lifestyle. But so long as the government kept on printing more and more easy money and patching up any strain in the bubble with transparent tape, there was no compelling need to listen.

Americans now face the dismal prospect that the prices of most goods and services -- basics as well as entertainment -- will rise steadily over the next four years. The bubble economy itself may well be gone soon after the November 5 election. No bubble means no more easy money. And as money tightens, the big losers will be the middle class, whose votes both parties are now courting with the promise that, one way or another, the bubble economy will just go on and on.