Economies were opening up around the world, including Russia and China. The start of the internet enabled B2B and consumers wider access to markets. Goods were in strong supply and markets were more accessible (compared to now where both goods and services are in shorter supply). Inflation was pretty much licked, compared to the past. Those in need of capital, from the smaller business person to global companies had a strong incentive not to recycle existing capital, but to borrow more. The Dot.com bubble burst in late 1999, but it sowed the seeds in societies' minds that a new era was coming, coupled with a new millennia.
This lead to massive worldwide economic confidence - it was not a UK thing. With a liberal and potentially expansive market ahead, central banks started to make much more money available and to encourage take up it was issued cheaply. That and very lax credit control created a boom in personal borrowing, particularly in the UK (this is where we were different). Borrowing was largely unregulated for home ownership - you self-certified you were in business projected to earn £120k a year and you would get a mortgage of £400k within the week. In some regions house price growth was 30% in 2002 and 20% in 2003. You wanted a new car, even the building society would deposit funds within 5 days.
Demand was further fuelled by the expansion of the state - not just the UK again. Public sector employees increased as states could afford to borrow to employ. Large capital investment programmes were planned, roads, airports, hospitals all on borrowed money. HS2 for example was planned in these years, to military precision, before it was announced in 2009.
Then we had a heady mix of globalisation, a new era, confidence and consensus on cheap money. Cheaper than we have seen before.
What we have now, particularly in the UK is reduced markets (that may get worse), fewer goods and services, high borrowing costs to repay - don't forget national debt is £90,000 per household - and no confidence. The latter is down to a real lack of political leadership and social cohesion in the UK. I will also add that many of our politicians display a real lack of life experiences across the whole spectrum from business skills to social skills.
I do not believe any well informed political party would want to be in power for the next 10 years. It is going to take 15 years for us to recover from what is coming, but recover we will and we all need to make some sensible choices about how we invest our time and our money - time being the most important one.