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I was born in 1990 so I can't say anything for the 80s, but the 90s were great. Back when kids didn't have cell phones, texting, and internet and actually went outside to play. My parents back then didn't have a lot of money and my mother worked 3 jobs to try and get by, but we still were happy. She's never been as happy as she used to be...
Some reasons why the 2000s to now is so much better than the 1980s and 1990s:
1. More technologically advanced.
Example 1:Computers and the internet barely even existed in the 1980s up to early to mid 1990s. It wasn't used by the majority of Americans until the Late 1990s/early 2000s.
Example 2: Cell phones and ipods started to be used much more from the early 2000s and later. Did they even exist before the mid to late 1990s?
Example 3: Some of the best websites in existence such as facebook, city-data and some other great websites were not even created until the early 2000s and later.
Example 4: Airplanes was not nearly as safe to travel in the 1980s and before as it was in the 2000s and later.
2. Better race relations and more racial integration
3. Better gender relations between both genders.
4. More equality for people that deserve equality
5. Better urban amenities of different types
6. Much lower crime rates for most places in the 2000s to now compared to how it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
7. USA had to worry about a nuclear war in the 1980s and the Cold war time period and from the 2000s to now it doesn't like the way it had to worry about it during the Cold War.
8. A higher percentage of people that are middle class and wealthy and less low income/poverty problems compared to how it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
9. The country became more progressive.
10. Much better, more varied and healthier food options.
11. More healthy lifestyle possibilities.
Wow, whatever you are smoking it must be REALLY powerful
In the 80's the farmers took a beating, the problems of the homelessness was the big hooplah, before the AIDS expidemic...factor in the unemployed and Reagonomics, latch key kids, both parents having to work to make ends meet, and 80's music was really fake and plastic if you look close enough. The Russians are coming!!! The Russians are coming!!!
Reaganomics was a plus, not a minus. Unemployment, interest rates and inflation was lowered and job growth and GDP grew. In fact, the GDP in one quarter of 1984 grew by over 9%.
80s/90s. While I enjoy our current day tech I can't help but vividly remember (since I was a young adult both decades) how much more social people were before the internet, gaming, "social media" and other forums of "cocooning" became so entrenched in daily life. And I mean face-to-face social, not the Facebook era crap that passes for it.
Reaganomics was a plus, not a minus. Unemployment, interest rates and inflation was lowered and job growth and GDP grew. In fact, the GDP in one quarter of 1984 grew by over 9%.
This was only after years of stagflation was brought under control by the Federal Reserve. Eventually a recovery was likely after stagnation for a number of years. So, job growth was fairly good for the later half of the 1980s. Reagan also dramatically increased the federal defecit due to excessive military spending.
Both periods have their benefits and consequences.
Whenever Whitney Houston had a hit, life was good. As soon as her hits stopped, it all went down the drain. Now that's she's gone, we can have some new good times, but given Whitney's passing, it just won't. What makes me cry about this era now is that it's old enough (especially pre-1995) to have the term "vintage" applied to certain items from this era. Many VOGUE fashion magazines from the '80s are now worth at least $20, even though they cost about $3-$5 when new.
But the 2000s+ have information overload, and there's no signs of that stopping anytime soon. Junk mails, the lowest ad response rate in history, multilingual instructions that add the cost to buyers who don't speak that language, and just so much more.
But if I divide into categories:
-Pop culture: '80s/'90s by far
-Technology: '00s-now (though there are still some neat items released in the '80s/'90s that now have some collector appeal)
-Fashion: Tie (Instead of cheesy hair, we have so many tatoos which some also find taboo)
-Economy: '80s/'90s (even if the rest of the '10s are better, we will still have many more boom years in '80s/'90s than '00s/'10s combined).
-Education: '80s/'90s (There was just enough technology in the former, such as calculators, tape players, overhead projectors, and early PC games to make it enjoyable. Nowadays people just use the Internet for help and find more creative ways to cheat through their cellphones. Also, tuition has outpaced inflation at colleges).
-Social life: Tie (Technology makes things more convienent and opens up a bigger range of meeting friends, but manners in people suffers. People are also much more reserved nowadays then they were in the '80s/'90s.
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