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1975-82 era. My parents tell me it was BAD but they pulled thru. What was it like back then? Anybody care to share?
It was bad, no doubt. Inflation was a problem even before the job market collapsed. Supermarkets didn't have bar-codes or scanners yet, so prices were stamped onto each item. This might be done several times before an item sold. To help control inflation the law back then was that if any item had more that two prices on it, the retailer could only charge as much as the second lowest price. It didn't work because retailers would simply increase the price by a larger amount the first time. If you were one of the people who got regular raises, you found yourself paying higher taxes because wage increases pushed you into higher tax brackets. At a certain point, credit became scarce because it was just too risky to lend and the interst rates were sky high. That's when things got really bad.
If you lost your job, you had a very hard time finding another one. Just about everyone I talked to told me something to the effect of "I'd like to take you on, but I got guys laid-off." Of course the UAW workers were OK. They got unemployment and regular extensions so they didn't have to worry about anything. They still complained all the time. The rest of us were simply screwed. In MI, it is much the same today as it was back then. My Congressman (Dingell) couldn't care less about my problem because I'm not in the UAW, a recent immigrant or on Social Security. He has his groups who keep him in Congress and the rest of us are dead to him. The same is true for Levin, Stabenow and Granholm. Today people are simply abandoning their houses because they owe so much more that they will ever be worth again, or any time soon. As bad as the rest of the country is now, it's far worse here. My nephew is nineteen and experiencing first-hand what I did almost thirty years ago, except for the inflation. That's right around the corner.
BO has yet to spend the "stimulus" because he realizes the effect of that monopoly money on the US economy will be instant inflation. So the Dem's are holding back and waiting for the right moment to release it. It it is done too soon and we'll have inflation before the mid-term elections. Or if it's too late, we won't have a bump before-hand. For the moment I'm hanging on to my house because even though I owe far more than it's valued at now, hyperinflation will make it possible for me to pay it off with cheap money. Of course that will create a new banking crisis and another round of bailouts. Sure would be nice if the governmet would stop screwin' around with the economy. Every time they do something for some special group, it becomes a financial crisis of some sort.
1975-82 era. My parents tell me it was BAD but they pulled thru. What was it like back then? Anybody care to share?
I remember it quite well. There were difficult moments, but nothing like the general malaise that we experienced during Watergate.
A minor correction: actually 1975-1976 were still the Ford years. Carter didn't take office until 1977. The crisis actually began in 1973 before Nixon resigned.
Carter, like Obama, inherited a huge mess, and like Obama, was put in the unfortunate position of having to act to resolve a domestic crisis, something his predecessors neglected to do.
Something else to consider: more jobs were created during Carter's adminstration than that of any recent president:
"To develop a sense of what economic “recovery†will feel like, it would be best to look back to Jimmy Carter’s presidency. With the dollar regularly testing new lows alongside weak imports and heavy government spending, the U.S. economy experienced under Carter what author William Greider described as “one of the longest and most expansive periods of economic growth in postwar history.†It’s also true that percentage job growth under Carter hit postwar records."
1975-82 era. My parents tell me it was BAD but they pulled thru. What was it like back then? Anybody care to share?
I remember my parent's stories about how they had to swap car licenses plates to get needed gas at times. Even number plates could only get gas on M, W, F, Su and odd numbers on T, Th, Sa.
I never understood growing up because I knew we had domestic oil. Having gone on many vacations out West, I saw all the pumps first hand. It never made sense. Then I discovered politics. Then it made sense.
I remember gas lines, and even-odd days to purchase gas depending on your license number. I remember buying my first house in 1985 at 14.5% interest, and being able to earn over 10% in money market accounts...but I didn't have any extra money to invest, unfortunately.
The media pumped Carter in the days leading up to the election as the smartest man to run for the Presidency in the past 100 years. We were told he was a genius, a master of detail who could take in voluminous amounts of information.
Yet, we were told, he was a kind, humble religious man.
He would bring change to Washington, we were told. A new way of doing things because he was one of us.
We were told how down to earth he was, how likable (especially as compared with that recent Republican we'd had).
We were told that complex problems demanded a man with his skills, even though his resume in public service was rather short. In fact he was a newcomer to national politics.
More than anything, we were told he was different from what we had and that was the most important thing.
I remember gas lines, and even-odd days to purchase gas depending on your license number. I remember buying my first house in 1985 at 14.5% interest, and being able to earn over 10% in money market accounts...but I didn't have any extra money to invest, unfortunately.
Ah, the memories. Bought my first home in '78 and managed to get it at 9.5%. The following day the rates went up to 11% so I thought of it as a bargain. Now, in the market for a house again, I have pre-approval at 4.5%.
I did have a few dollars I could put into deferred compenasation back then and did, in fact, get 10% in interest. Haven't seen that since.
I wonder what would have been different if Gerald Ford had won.
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