General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How did the 70s get framed as the ultimate bad time? [View all]House of Roberts
(6,560 posts)No seriously. That the 70s were bad is another RWNJ rewrite of history, in an attempt to blame everything that went wrong in the 80s on Carter.
The economy of the 70s was the blowback of US foreign policy in the Middle East, causing the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, and the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The increases of the price of oil caused cost-push inflation. Neither Nixon nor Carter were able to do anything to stop prices rising, so the RW blames it all on Carter.
Reagan didn't do any better. Remember how in 2009 all the articles said this was the worst economy in 36 years? That dates back to 1983. Reagan hadn't been able to turn things around after two years in office, even though he still had a manufacturing base to stimulate. Yet they blamed the slow recovery in 2010-2011 on Obama, who had almost nothing to work with to make things better.
The 80s is when everything began to slide for the working class people. The 70s was when my parent's $87 a month mortgage payment became a tiny fraction of my dad's check, and my mom didn't have to work. By the 80s new families had to have two incomes to make ends meet.