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The reason the economy struggled during Carter's presidency was due to the Arab oil embargo. It had nothing to do with Carter's policies. Carter used the crisis to stimulate investment in alternative energy development. If the US had stayed on that track, the US would be closer to energy independence today.
That is one of my criticisms of Carter. There was no oil crisis. He was led to believe there was, and reacted to a fallacy. There was nothing wrong with curbing excessive gluttony for oil or anything else, but the reason given for it had no foundation in fact.
I remember as a teenager the high inflation of those years. The price of everything went up between trips to the store. People born since then really have no idea what rampant inflation is like. You go grocery shopping and two weeks later the prices on many things have been replaced with higher price tags. This would go on month after month. To keep up, peoples wages would also go up, but often would not keep pace with the prices. It seemed to many people the US economy was out of control. The term then was Stagflation.
In fairness, this was not Carter's fault, but like most presidents, when things go bad, you get the blame. Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker to run the Federal Reserve eventually tamed the inflation beast, but long after Carter was gone.
One area where Carter was horrible in my opinion was his appointment of federal judges. Some of the absolute worst judges in my lifetime were Carter appointees , who made some of the goofiest decisions of the last 30 years. Fortunately, most of them are now gone.
In foreign policy, Carter was ineffective against Soviet communist expansion. The Soviet leaders thought he was weak, and push expansionist policies, in Asia and Latin America. Carter had no effective response to this and resorted to the silly boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
I remember as a teenager the high inflation of those years. The price of everything went up between trips to the store. People born since then really have no idea what rampant inflation is like. You go grocery shopping and two weeks later the prices on many things have been replaced with higher price tags. This would go on month after month. To keep up, peoples wages would also go up, but often would not keep pace with the prices. It seemed to many people the US economy was out of control. The term then was Stagflation.
In fairness, this was not Carter's fault, but like most presidents, when things go bad, you get the blame. Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker to run the Federal Reserve eventually tamed the inflation beast, but long after Carter was gone.
One area where Carter was horrible in my opinion was his appointment of federal judges. Some of the absolute worst judges in my lifetime were Carter appointees , who made some of the goofiest decisions of the last 30 years. Fortunately, most of them are now gone.
In foreign policy, Carter was ineffective against Soviet communist expansion. The Soviet leaders thought he was weak, and push expansionist policies, in Asia and Latin America. Carter had no effective response to this and resorted to the silly boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
It was the appointment of Paul Volcker to the Fed and the polices which followed that drove the final nails into Jimmy Carter's re-election coffin.
Not since the 1920's had the Federal Reserve been so hated and attacked as it was during the Carter and later subsequent administration. The medicine Volcker meted out was tough (prime rate at around 21%, and a Fed funds rate of 20%) pushed in turn the unemployment rate to 10%. But as mentioned up-thread "stagflation" had to be dealt with
High interest rates hurt two sectors in particular, housing and farming, both of which wailed and protested loudly.
I remember as a teenager the high inflation of those years. The price of everything went up between trips to the store. People born since then really have no idea what rampant inflation is like. You go grocery shopping and two weeks later the prices on many things have been replaced with higher price tags. This would go on month after month. To keep up, peoples wages would also go up, but often would not keep pace with the prices. It seemed to many people the US economy was out of control. The term then was Stagflation.
In fairness, this was not Carter's fault, but like most presidents, when things go bad, you get the blame. Carter's appointment of Paul Volcker to run the Federal Reserve eventually tamed the inflation beast, but long after Carter was gone.
One area where Carter was horrible in my opinion was his appointment of federal judges. Some of the absolute worst judges in my lifetime were Carter appointees , who made some of the goofiest decisions of the last 30 years. Fortunately, most of them are now gone.
In foreign policy, Carter was ineffective against Soviet communist expansion. The Soviet leaders thought he was weak, and push expansionist policies, in Asia and Latin America. Carter had no effective response to this and resorted to the silly boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Who were some of Carter's judicial picks?
Carter did not get a chance to make a Supreme Court pick.
Not sure if anyone saw Carter on Meet the Press this morning, there was no rabbit attacks, but he was asked why he quit the Baptist faith. He said it was for women's rights, because they do not allow women deacons or ministers. Then they asked him why some former presidents have consulted with and used him to some capacity, and why president Obama has not used him for anything. His answer was that he could not respond with candor the way he would like, but said he thought it was because of a differing view between him and Obama about the Israel/PLO situation and policy. Any thoughts ?
Carter has been criticized for his own criticism about other presidents. He has broken the code kept by the other former presidents about no public criticism of one another. Could this be why Obama won't touch him, or is it something else ?
^^^ The second oil crisis in the late 70's was brought about by the strengthening of OPEC, and shortages came about mostly because of wage & price controls, which reduced market supply. The embargo was over, but after gas prices doubled under Nixon-Ford, they pretty much doubled again by 1980. Gas went from 35 cents a gallon in 1973 to $1.30 a gallon by 1983, topping $1.00 in 1979. What made it an even harder hit, was most people still owned land yacht cars that got 8 to 12 mpg. Carter did sort of have a good energy policy, concerning energy conservation and alternative energy. Remember "save a gallon of gas a week" and "fifty five's a friend" public service announcements ?
In addition to the boycott of the Olympics, he implemented a grain embargo against the Russians for the Afghanistan invasion. This had a very negative and long term effect on the farm economy, as the Russians went to Argentina for their grain.
The Russians also bought grain from Canada during that time.
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