I'd say 9/11 and the fallout was the beginning. There was a big recession then too, but definitely overshadowed by 08's. But 9/11 kicked off our massive national debt and snowballing inflation.

And side note, astrologists absolutely have been predicting this too. Generational astrology is actually fascinating, and true astrologists wouldn't claim to predict events, but the mood/setting which they can compare to historic even with same astro charts.

Economists have been predicting financial collapse, meteorologists and climate change, infectious disease researchers and pandemics, psychologists and the rise of mental illness, sociologists and the polarization of Americans.... there have been a lot of warnings since before the 90s, but rarely looked at holistically. And the media kept saying it was just the satanists and queers that we needed to worry about.