Around when Bush was re-elected, I think. Although it accelerated in the last recession, this is not something new.
I don't think it's about "the economy" at all. A lot of research has been done during periods of much bleaker economy than there is now. Maybe it was the cold war (and earlier country-level competition) keeping people sharp.
So 6 years? That's not a long time as these things go.
In my question I was going to add that if it's less than 5 years you are not waiting long enough, and 10 is more realistic. (But decided to just leave it as a question.)
The last internet bubble was 10 years ago, and only now are we are starting to talk about about an upswing again. Economic cycles are measured in decades.
Notice the downturn right before you gave up? Even today we are still not higher than we were in 06. When you start to see the graph look like it does in 88 to 99 then things will turn around.
Maybe you're right, we'll see. A good climate for long-term science would be a sustained, growing economy, instead of the bipolar downswings/upswings that we're seeing the last decade.
Otherwise: There is a new upswing, all new projects, talk about going to Mars. Then a new crash, it's all cancelled again.. and so on.
I agree about a stable economy, it's hard to do long term science if available resources keep changing.
I found this graph: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Real+Gross+Domestic+Pro... (Switch it to logscale.) The most obvious thing I notice about it is the totally flat result after 2000, then improvement (but not as fast as before), and now back where we started.
It appears to me that the dent is really small (especially in log scale). What's all the fuss really about? Seems just that politicians are making a big issue out of this and using it as a rationalization to make cuts that they already wanted to do anyway.
I don't think it's about "the economy" at all. A lot of research has been done during periods of much bleaker economy than there is now. Maybe it was the cold war (and earlier country-level competition) keeping people sharp.