Originally Posted by MaxQ

You are correct Cargo.
But it was the immediate and proximate cause.

It doesn't have to be even "blaming the administration".
It was in response to Vax saying the predictions of furloughs hadn't come to pass. Well, they now have. It was the proverbial straw and it is pedantic spin to try and say that "well they don't count" because they were already sick.

I worked for one of the 3 majors that closed their doors in Nov. 1991.
It is quite likely that none of them would have been in business by the end of 1992.
But it is an empirical fact that the first gulf war was the reason that the shut down occurred in Nov '91.
It is disingenuous to say elsewise.