Why were the 70s such a tacky decade?

[Zombie_61]

...My Dad on the other hand seemed agnostic as he said - earning a living was your number one job...

Your dad sounds a lot like both my dad and my father-in-law. Both men were born in 1913 and grew up during the Depression (dad here in the U.S., my father-in-law in Italy), and their priorities were providing for their respective families. Dad almost always worked six days a week, sometimes seven. My father-in-law had a full-time job at a steel mill outside of Chicago, and in his off-hours he painted houses and did other "handyman" jobs to make ends meet. To them, everything else was varying degrees of unimportant. Neither of our families were ever wealthy by anyone's measure, but we never wanted for food, clothing, or shelter because our dads spent the majority of their time making sure we had the things we needed. And their work ethic, by example, was instilled in me and my wife. This is not to say we don't occasionally spend money on things we "want" rather than "need", but if push comes to shove "need" is definitely the priority.

 

[Stearmen]

On gee thanks. Gas lines only lasted for two years---great...... Vietnam lasted until half way into the 70s gee thanks.....

We have been through all those figures before and you know you are wrong so just leave it at that before I have to put the chart up again and prove you wrong. Everything was up in the 70s, unemployment, inflation and interest rates. It sucked like a Dyson and there is no getting around it. No matter how much people want to lie about it. It was bad. if you lived through it, it was even worse.

Show me where the interest rates hit 20% in the 1970. It was 1980! Here is the unemployment rats! 1970 4.9
1971 5.9
1972 5.6
1973 4.9
1974 5.6
1975 8.5
1976 7.7
1977 7.1
1978 6.1
1979 5.8
1980 7.1
1981 7.6
1982 9.7
1983 9.6
1984 7.5
1985 7.2
1986 7.0
1987 6.2
1988 5.5
1989 5.3

 

[jamespowers]

Show me where the interest rates hit 20% in the 1970. It was 1980! Here is the unemployment rats! 1970 4.9
1971 5.9
1972 5.6
1973 4.9
1974 5.6
1975 8.5
1976 7.7
1977 7.1
1978 6.1
1979 5.8
1980 7.1
1981 7.6
1982 9.7
1983 9.6
1984 7.5
1985 7.2
1986 7.0
1987 6.2
1988 5.5
1989 5.3

Where did you get that crap?!

Without food and energy expenditures this is what the Bureau of Labor statistics says. That is just the CORE CPI.
The price of Oil:

"In the 1970s the U.S. stock market was a mess. It lost 40% in an 18-month period. By the close of the decade few people wanted anything to do with stocks. Economic growth was weak, which resulted in rising unemployment that eventually reached double-digits. The easy-money policies of the U.S. Central Bank, which were designed to generate full employment by the early 1970s, also caused record high inflation.
Interest Rate Casualties
This is the gruesome story of the great inflation of the 1970s, which began in late 1972 -- and didn't end until the early 1980s. In his book, "Stocks for the Long Run: A Guide for Long Term Growth" (1994), Professor Jeremy Siegel, called it "the greatest failure of American macroeconomic policy in the postwar period." Here is a chart showing the Consumer Price Index (ie INFLATION) from 1974-2009. Of particular note is how much the CPI soared in the late 1970s.

From 1977-1980 Treasury Bonds plummeted -38% from (100 to 62) – as interest rates sky-rocked +58% (from 7.6% to over 13.0%). During this same period the US Dollar declined -21% (from 107 to 85). Interest-sensitive industries (such as housing and cars) were devastated by the soaring interest rates. Sadly, many people were priced out of new cars and homes by the skyrocketing interest rates."




Obviously you weren't looking around in the 70s when things were crashing down.

 

[jamespowers]

You already admitted it was all down hill!

Downhill with a bump in the road. Then downhill fast as Hell.

 

[MisterCairo]

Not only living rooms. If you didn't have a brown fridge in the 70s then be thankful, be very thankful......

Close - my parents went Harvest Gold. Got a deal on a set of appliances for our new house; they had been in railway cars during a derailment. Tacky, but cheap.

 

[Fading Fast]

Your dad sounds a lot like both my dad and my father-in-law. Both men were born in 1913 and grew up during the Depression (dad here in the U.S., my father-in-law in Italy), and their priorities were providing for their respective families. Dad almost always worked six days a week, sometimes seven. My father-in-law had a full-time job at a steel mill outside of Chicago, and in his off-hours he painted houses and did other "handyman" jobs to make ends meet. To them, everything else was varying degrees of unimportant. Neither of our families were ever wealthy by anyone's measure, but we never wanted for food, clothing, or shelter because our dads spent the majority of their time making sure we had the things we needed. And their work ethic, by example, was instilled in me and my wife. This is not to say we don't occasionally spend money on things we "want" rather than "need", but if push comes to shove "need" is definitely the priority.

Very similar indeed. "Earn a living "- to him, everything else was secondary. And while I think more about those secondary things than he ever did, I still agree, providing for food, shelter, clothing and medicare for my family is job #1 even if society and others have all these other fancy ideologies and theories. "Putting food on the table" has to happen before you can afford to worry about all those other things. But it had to be done honestly - that was a rule that was so understood it was rarely spoken off, but his complete disdain for cheats, etc. made it loud and clear.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Show me where the interest rates hit 20% in the 1970. It was 1980! Here is the unemployment rats! 1970 4.9
1971 5.9
1972 5.6
1973 4.9
1974 5.6
1975 8.5
1976 7.7
1977 7.1
1978 6.1
1979 5.8
1980 7.1
1981 7.6
1982 9.7
1983 9.6
1984 7.5
1985 7.2
1986 7.0
1987 6.2
1988 5.5
1989 5.3

Those figures chart pretty closely with the way things were here -- our unemployment rates varied wildly depending on the part of the state you were in, but in general the early eighties were the lowest point of the downward trend that began in the seventies. I remember very well the first time I heard that "are you better off now than you were four years ago" business in the runup to the 1984 election, and everybody in the room with me yelled NO! We definitely were *not* better off, and "morning in America" was sleety and cold.

It really wasn't until the late nineties that things perked up here, and we had that little bubble that lasted until 2008. But in general, the economy here has always stunk, no matter what policies were in place.

 

[jamespowers]

Close - my parents went Harvest Gold. Got a deal on a set of appliances for our new house; they had been in railway cars during a derailment. Tacky, but cheap.

:rofl: I would take tacky yellow over a tacky brown fridge. Fortunately---like many things made in the 70s---it didn't last too long before it neede to be replaced.

 

[jamespowers]

Very similar indeed. "Earn a living "- to him, everything else was secondary. And while I think more about those secondary things than he ever did, I still agree, providing for food, shelter, clothing and medicare for my family is job #1 even if society and others have all these other fancy ideologies and theories. "Putting food on the table" has to happen before you can afford to worry about all those other things. But it had to be done honestly - that was a rule that was so understood it was rarely spoken off, but his complete disdain for cheats, etc. made it loud and clear.

Agreed! Putting food on the table is job one. Daily living expenses job two.

 

[jamespowers]

Those figures chart pretty closely with the way things were here -- our unemployment rates varied wildly depending on the part of the state you were in, but in general the early eighties were the lowest point of the downward trend that began in the seventies. I remember very well the first time I heard that "are you better off now than you were four years ago" business in the runup to the 1984 election, and everybody in the room with me yelled NO! We definitely were *not* better off, and "morning in America" was sleety and cold.

It really wasn't until the late nineties that things perked up here, and we had that little bubble that lasted until 2008. But in general, the economy here has always stunk, no matter what policies were in place.

The rust belt was very different from what it was here then. Once we got out of stagflation were were good for over a decade.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

:rofl: I would take tacky yellow over a tacky brown fridge. Fortunately---like many things made in the 70s---it didn't last too long before it neede to be replaced.

Brown should NEVER be associated with food.
...well, it is kinda but I won't get into that

 

[jamespowers]

Brown should NEVER be associated with food.
...well, it is kinda but I won't get into that

Yeah---"Introducing the new weight loss inducing brown fridge....."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Very similar indeed. "Earn a living "- to him, everything else was secondary. And while I think more about those secondary things than he ever did, I still agree, providing for food, shelter, clothing and medicare for my family is job #1 even if society and others have all these other fancy ideologies and theories. "Putting food on the table" has to happen before you can afford to worry about all those other things.

The two, however, are not mutually exclusive. There has never been a man alive who worked harder than my grandfather did -- in factories, on road gangs, slinging tapioca and potatoes down on the docks, and running that gas station for forty years of twelve-hour workdays. And what first led me to seriously question the ideology that dominates American society was watching him work himself into an obscure, forgotten little corner of the cemetery with nothing -- *nothing* -- to show for the seventy-five years he spent on earth but a mortgage, a rusty car, a shoebox full of trinkets, and an 8" x 12" piece of rock.

Here was a man who didn't just work, he was an integral part of his community in a fundamental way. He didn't run for office, he didn't sit on any boards -- he didn't have enough money for the people who care about such things to invite him to do so -- he didn't hold any impressive titles or ranks, not even in the Knights of Pythias. What he did do, however, was more important than any of those things. He helped people who weren't his immediate family, in every way that he could. When he heard of a family -- any family -- in our town that needed a load of fuel oil or kerosene and couldn't afford to pay for it, his truck was out there that afternoon. If somebody needed a job, he'd give them one, even if they were the most shiftless, no-account bum on the street -- if he was willing to work he'd get a chance.

I was in charge of auditing the final books after he died and when I opened the drawer I was astonished by what I saw -- *hundreds* of unpaid bills, dating back to the late forties. Many of the people named on those bills were friends who had fallen on hard times, others were people I never knew, but I figured it was the same story. He had never dunned any of them for payment -- my grandmother used to push him to collect, but he said "they'll pay when they can get around to it."

Basically, my grandfather was, by the standards of American capitalism, a lousy businessman. He let his heart run his business instead of his head. He died broke and now, thirty-four years later, he's completely and utterly forgotten in the town where he lived his entire life. Polite society was too busy kissing the backsides of the men in suits, even though every one of them left the town holding the bag whenever their bottom line was threatened. Those men, probably, thought they "worked hard" too and were entitled to what they squeezed out of the town before they left -- but they weren't fit to lick my grandfather's greasy, worn-out shoes.

So yeah, that's why I question why modern society values what they do the way they do. If there *isn't* a better way to build a society, what's the point of going on at all?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

In contrast, I had an acquaintance who was the kind who would lend you fifty cents and then ten years later would remember it like it was yesterday and want interest! At any given time this guy had several different lawsuits* going against various people and companies. When his car broke down, instead of getting it fixed like most people would, he sued Nissan and got a $2,500 settlement which he used to take a trip to Hawaii.

*he even tried to get involved in the O.J. Simpson case because his psychiatrist was apparently the same one who had treated O.J.!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just affirms what I've always seen around me. There's two kinds of people in the world -- the kind that says "What's in it for me?" and the kind that says "How can I help?" I'd much rather live in world run by the latter, but based on what I see around me every day, I imagine I'll die in a world run by the former.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

And this guy was a teacher! Makes you wonder what his students were really learning. I seem to remember that he had all kinds of conflicts with administration was eventually forced into early retirement.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My tenth-grade history teacher lost his job when he got caught shoplifting a carton of Camels. I learned, from him, not to take up smoking.

That said, he didn't begin to approach the sleaze of this fine businessman and solid citizen. I've always wondered how things would have turned out if he'd won that election in 1984.

 

[Nobert]

That said, he didn't begin to approach the sleaze of this fine businessman and solid citizen. I've always wondered how things would have turned out if he'd won that election in 1984.

Oh, man, I used to clean his lawyer's office. Pity; of the several law offices I cleaned during my distinguished career in the Custodial Arts, they seemed the most mammalian.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A couple of my close friends worked for him in one of his various "successful businesses." They were not at all surprised to see that he finally got caught with his fat meaty paw in the till.

 

[Fading Fast]

The two, however, are not mutually exclusive. There has never been a man alive who worked harder than my grandfather did -- in factories, on road gangs, slinging tapioca and potatoes down on the docks, and running that gas station for forty years of twelve-hour workdays. And what first led me to seriously question the ideology that dominates American society was watching him work himself into an obscure, forgotten little corner of the cemetery with nothing -- *nothing* -- to show for the seventy-five years he spent on earth but a mortgage, a rusty car, a shoebox full of trinkets, and an 8" x 12" piece of rock.

Here was a man who didn't just work, he was an integral part of his community in a fundamental way. He didn't run for office, he didn't sit on any boards -- he didn't have enough money for the people who care about such things to invite him to do so -- he didn't hold any impressive titles or ranks, not even in the Knights of Pythias. What he did do, however, was more important than any of those things. He helped people who weren't his immediate family, in every way that he could. When he heard of a family -- any family -- in our town that needed a load of fuel oil or kerosene and couldn't afford to pay for it, his truck was out there that afternoon. If somebody needed a job, he'd give them one, even if they were the most shiftless, no-account bum on the street -- if he was willing to work he'd get a chance.

I was in charge of auditing the final books after he died and when I opened the drawer I was astonished by what I saw -- *hundreds* of unpaid bills, dating back to the late forties. Many of the people named on those bills were friends who had fallen on hard times, others were people I never knew, but I figured it was the same story. He had never dunned any of them for payment -- my grandmother used to push him to collect, but he said "they'll pay when they can get around to it."

Basically, my grandfather was, by the standards of American capitalism, a lousy businessman. He let his heart run his business instead of his head. He died broke and now, thirty-four years later, he's completely and utterly forgotten in the town where he lived his entire life. Polite society was too busy kissing the backsides of the men in suits, even though every one of them left the town holding the bag whenever their bottom line was threatened. Those men, probably, thought they "worked hard" too and were entitled to what they squeezed out of the town before they left -- but they weren't fit to lick my grandfather's greasy, worn-out shoes.

So yeah, that's why I question why modern society values what they do the way they do. If there *isn't* a better way to build a society, what's the point of going on at all?

I have read your post several times and thought about it since yesterday. My grandmother and your grandfather had some real parallels and some differences. My grandmother worked incredibly hard (though, to be honest, your grandfather worked harder) and her health completely fell apart in her later years owing to it. She was destitute in the '30s, scraped by in the '40s, got on her feet in the '50s, got sick in the '60s (two cancers when - and while it is still horrible today - the treatments were even more brutal back then, emphysema, and a serious hip issue) and died with a very little in the '70s.

After she died - as I never learned this from her - we saw that she, too, as a small business owner had an incredible number of uncollected bills as she helped out many people (it was a small town in her day and she knew everyone) and she gave extensively to charity (time - back when she was healthy and, always, money). At and after her funeral for years, people would come up to me and tell me stories of how my grandmother had helped them with time or money. And the businessmen she dealt with told me time and again how "your grandmother was a smart business woman whose word was better than any contract anywhere." Does anyone in that town think about her now - not a chance. But she wouldn't care - the people who knew her in her day respected her - that's what mattered to her.

She didn't have a lot, but she did have a small apartment, an old car, no debt (she was incredibly proud of that) and enough money in her old age to keep those things. She loved American Capitalism - thought it was the best system in the world and believed that you got a fairer shake (not fair - told me 10,000 times the world wasn't fair) from it than in any other system.

I am not - LET ME EMPHASIZE THIS, NOT - arguing she was right and your grandfather was wrong. I don't want to (and don't believe this is the venue for it) have a political conversation - what I thought was interesting was that with some incredible overlaps in grandparents - we came out with very different view of our American system. That's it - no other point to make and am not disputing one thing you said or the views you hold.