More than wall-mounted plasma screens in college dorms, Miami condos flipping twice before they’re built or private jet cards in the wallets of middle managers, nothing demonstrated the excess of our good times decade like the ostentatious spending of rappers in what historians will later refer to as the Era of Bling.

The American Dream was never so well illustrated as when young men with little formal education and well-documented drug habits were easily able to drive Bentley coupes to strip clubs where they showered women with stacks of actual cash before spilling $1,000-a-bottle champagne on their custom Rolexes, leaving only to give a pep talk to the NBA team that they had an ownership stake in.

But with declining record sales, concert receipts and the overall zeitgeist moving away from conspicuous consumption, the era of bling is officially over.  No bones about it, the hip-hop community is hurting right now. What’s the world coming to when hit producers file for bankruptcy and Method Man can’t pay his taxes?

Rapper Young Jeezy makes it clear as the diamonds on his wrist with the title of his latest album “The Recession“.

Need further proof? Watch this hard-hitting investigative piece from The Daily Show.