As you suggest economic cycles are called economic cycles because even in the face of a rising trend in asset "values" due to scarcity over the long term, values can move up and down along the trend line in long or short cycles based on fluctuating demand.

Do not confuse asset values with prices. Prices are nothing more than the current exchange rate between an asset and a fiat currency like dollars.

So when I graduated college the starting salary for people in my profession was $15-18K. And a car costs around $8K and a condo costs around $50K.

So if someone today earns $45K as a starting salary and a car costs around $25K and a condo costs $150K. The condo has not tripled in value... even though it has tripled in price. Neither is the car "worth" 3X as much. The more accurate comparison is the relative value of the car, the condo, and the starting salaries to one another and not the absolute dollar value over time.

Government debt is a problem and the government will most like "print" its way out of trouble. This will cause the underlying purchasing power of a dollar to decline as the "supply" of dollars grows far faster than the supply of assets for which they can be exchanged.

One attraction to non government digital currencies is the inability to produce them at will. Again scarcity means their relative value to dollars go up. In light of government spending and money printing, it is a good idea that people do not keep to much of their wealth in "dollars" which at some point will become a depreciating assets in light of the massive increase in supply the government is injecting into the system. Instead, keep enough dollars in reserve to address any short term currency needs and invest the rest in assets whose relative value is likely to increase due to increasing demand either from population growth or standard of living expansion.