After World War II, when countries and economies began to recover and expand, the development of consumerism was well entrenched in the U.S. and idealized throughout most of the rest of the world. The U.S. consumer, fueled with a highly efficient production machine, bought and tossed away products almost as fast as they could be made and created an expansion based on demand that has lifted the economies and personal wealth of all of the industrialized nations of the world, as well as nations that provide basic commodities like oil, minerals, and metals.