It finally happened; I’m at an age when I get to spend time correcting younger people about the misconceptions some older people are giving them about “my” time.
Maybe it’s just me – but I’ve been noting a little surge of questions – and revisionist answers – about the 1980s, lately.
I’ll stick with the question:
I’ll take a run at that.
No, Mr. McGeoch and anyone else with the question – they were even better than most people today credit them for.
Do yourself a favor and watch the movie the movie “Miracle”; the opening montage *brilliantly* shows how depressing US life was in the ’70s.
Here it is.
If you are of a certain age, you can almost feel the depression of that era – the malaise that plagued us for that miserable decade – creeping over you.
We know how the movie – and the game whose story it related – ended; a two hour movie about a one hour game boiling down to one of the most memorable minutes in the history of television:
The decade took a little longer, and was a lot more suspenseful.
It wasn’t just that we bounced back from the economic malaise of the ’70s, and the ’82 recession (as bad as 2008) in a way that seems *miraculous* today. Although to a guy getting out into the world at the time, that was pretty good timing.
No – it was much bigger.
In the ’70s, Communism – the bloodiest dictatorships in history – was at its peak. And while the success of Ronald Reagan’s goal of extincting the USSR has a thousand fathers today, in 1980 literally nobody thought they were going away.
People today think of the Cold War as a cultural punch line – but it was no joke, kids.
I grew up in missile country, during the height of the cold war, between two SAC bases. I grew up very aware the world could get incinerated in minutes if some colonel in Moscow or Colorado Springs had a bad day.
I was *never* going to have kids in a world like that. This was something I knew when I graduated from college. Why bring someone into the world, just to have them die with you, and the rest of civilization? What was the point?
And over the course of that decade, the USSR – the most murderous regime in history – went from being the “other” superpower to…gone.
The threat hanging over all of us and everything we did…
..vanished.
In 1980, the entire American intelligentsia said the Communist world was here to stay. Anyone who says that they didn’t think so is lying.
And yet:
Even his own staff thought it was too reckless. The Democrats? Forget about it.
And even though I was living in the middle of it at the time, I didn’t quite believe it. Even as the Berlin Wall fell…:
…I couldn’t quite believe it.
I’ve cited Miracle; I’m going to drop the other pop culture bomb. Things still hadn’t sunk in for me when I was working at at Top 40 station. This song came out:
It’s “Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones. They’re a trite, flash in the pan British post-new-wave band. But it was the only song (other than the Scorptions Wind of Change) about that bit of history. I can’t think of a whole lot of pop culture artifacts about “watching the world wake up from history”.
It’s a trite bit of new wave pop – and I get a catch in my threat when I listen to it, to this day.
Because it came out about the time that the USAF, which had kept nuclear bombers on alert 24/7 for literally 40 years…stopped. Hundreds of missiles got retired.
And it was like someone lifted a steamer trunk full of bowling balls off my chest. I have no idea how to relate that to someone who wasn’t there.
Bob Dylan didn’t have this to sing about
You know it feels good to be alive
Other than perhaps to hope one gets the significance that my oldest was born a year later – into a world that was safe enough to think about it. And for all the jabbering about “revolution” that the generation before mine had inflicted on the world, this? This was revolutionary.
All because of what happened in the ’80s.
I saw the decade in, when it seemed the world could change with the blink of an eye.
And it didn’t end there. With the end of the Cold War, a tidal wave of defense effort turned to civilian uses. All that American ingenuity that had spent the ’70s and ’80s helping tanks hit their targets while driving at 40mph, detecting Soviet submarines hundreds of miles away, went into civilian goods. The GPS in your smart phone started out in smart bombs. Your car’s airbag’s origin story was in the fire detector in M1 Abrams tanks. This blog comes to you via ancient Department of Defense project eventually called the Internet.
It was the “peace dividend”. Bill Clinton (with the invaluable assistance of the last actually conservative GOP Congress forcing him to the right) got to cash it. The economy went on the longest boom in history.
It would not have happened without the events of the 1980s.
That’s the fun, nostalgic part. I spent my late teens and early 20s watching the world wake up from history.
But as another song put it, nothing good ever lasts: Mr. McGeoch’s entire generation grew up knowing little about the era but what they’ve been told by the people who write the memes, who shoot the TikTok videos, write the cultural punch lines – while at the same time benefitting from its results as no previous generation in human history. Two generations have grown up thinking that the world that started in 1989 was the natural order – or, simultaneously better and worse, not having to think about it all that hard.
It’s not. Mankind’s natural state is for the strong to dominate the weak; for those with the will to power to control those without. The moral arc of history is long, but almost always – but for this past 200-odd years – bends toward tyranny and barbarism.
And it can all go away like *that*.
“I saw the world change in the blink of an eye” when I was 26.
I’m seeing it change back in a long, slow, masochistic drip drip drip.
Like the seventies – only much more serious, this time. Perhaps because I’m old enough and well-read enough to know the consequences. Perhaps because the people driving us toward what appears to be an even deeper, grayer nadir are not comic book villains in tanks, but people in our own country, with PhDs and blue checkmarks.
It’s game-time…
…against ourselves.
Hope that answers the question.
American per capita GDP in 1980, adjusted for inflation, was $12,575.
In 2021 it was $69,288.
OTOH, in 1980 the Social Security Taxable Maximum Earnings was $25,900. I was working as an electronic tech then, and although I did not hit the limit, a lot of the more senior guys in the department, people pushing 40 years old, hit the limit.
When I retired I held an engineering level job, much better paid than an ET with two decades of experience.
I’ve never hit the SS maximum earnings in my life.
In the 80s my father owned a house in a northern Twin Cities suburb with a mortgage payment < $100/month. The family owned 2 cars and had a cabin on a lake a forty minute drive away. He worked as a plumber.
I was too young to vote for Carter, but I thought he was the one. Four years later, I watched one of my professors throw an eraser at his grader who casually remarked he was going to vote for Reagan. I did vote for him after seeing what I thought was probably the worst, most naïve idiot possible run the White House (little did I know about Joe Biden…).
I’m old enough to remember 18% mortgage rates, people being unable to sell houses and thus being stuck in jobs, COLAs being written into union contracts fueling even more inflation, etc. Miserable, yes, and I don’t think it’s really appreciated how bad things were then. And that “Reagan Recession” to fix inflation really was much worse than 2008. I know, I was looking for a job at the time.
What followed was incomparable. After the Reagan Recession ended folks became much happier, but the Libs and Dems kept whipping up anti-nuke hysteria, trying to convince folks that a trigger-happy Reagan would start WWIII. But at least the economic life of the country was much happier. And then when, to the consternation of the Ted Kennedy faction of the Dems and the “Intelligence” agencies , the USSR imploded there was a general sense of relief that you had to be there to appreciate. The Democrats of the 70s and 80s were the only ones able to give Biden a run as being wrong on every foreign policy decision, and they had been soundly proven wrong yet again.
I experienced the 1980s between the ages of 5 and 15.
I was a Gen-X latch-key kid. My parents bought their house in 1978, when mortgage interest rates were high. Money was tight, and both my parents worked. When I was a little older, I came home from school and took care of myself for a couple of hours each day.
You’re right, Mitch: Without the 80s, the prosperity of the following decades would not have happened. In the workplace, I’ve encountered people, typically from the younger generations, that were born into that prosperity and with less of an independent streak. In its place? Sometimes, a deep sense of entitlement. I recall an instructor for a class I took years ago drawing the parallels between generations. Both the boomers and the millennials were incensed when he dared to demonstrate how similar the two generations were.
And it’s true that the younger generations don’t know much about the 80s, other than what’s been spoon-fed to them by teachers whom either hated Reagan or had parents that hated Reagan. I made an off-hand comment to one of my nieces, a Gen-Z’er, about “visiting Berlin a couple of years after the Wall fell”. She asked me, “What Wall?”
UMMP;
Yup! And the trades are already starting on a path to make as much or more than a lot of attorneys. A friend’s daughter, just finished an apprenticeship as an electrician. He says she’ll be making over $60k in mostly salary, but benefits.
I remember multiple times during high school listening the the radio while I drove home from cross country or track practice and hearing the latest thing Reagan had done. I will confess to a degree of “Holy s***, that’s something I haven’t seen much before.” I was consistently amazed at what was happening…Grenada….Libya….and then finally the fall of that wall. I’d walked through Checkpoint Charlie just a few months earlier in August 1989.
Never thought that after we’d seen what happened under Communism, people would be tempted to do the same. But like Reagan said, freedom is just a generation away from extinction. We need to remember and remind people what used to be, and how bad things can get if we’re not careful.
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Fascinating that so many boomers who came of age while we were losing a war, our cities were on fire, leaders were being assassinated, families collapsing, the economy rocked by energy and inflation crises, somehow believe that things are hopelessly awful — today.
U.S. Added 528,000 Jobs in July
https://www.wsj.com/articles/july-jobs-report-unemployment-rate-economy-growth-2022-11659646690
This shows the real story on employment:
https://twitter.com/JohnKicklighter/status/1555545043116724224/photo/1
Continue the line from 2019, we are still 10,000,000 jobs short of where we would be w/o covid restrictions.
somehow believe that things are hopelessly awful — today.
The boomers grew up with Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Each man with his own flaws, but leaps and bounds more competent than our possibly-senile gaffe-machine who could teach a college course on mistakes in foreign and domestic policy.
U.S. Added 528,000 Jobs in July
Cheerful as this headline is, read the fine print: We’re back to pre-pandemic employment levels. This news comes on the heels of the feeble attempts by the administration and their media cheerleaders to redefine what a recession.
^^ SiTD’s CEO of Doom & Gloom
What we have actually have is a massively positive jobs report, with the labor market firing on all cylinders and then some more.
Sets up a really interesting situation/conundrum for the stock market bulls currently in the driver’s seat.
Will they celebrate the strong jobs report as a confirmation of the underlying strength of the economy and hence bid-up stocks even more because strong economy = strong corporate profits = positive for stock prices?
Or will the “good news is bad news” theme come to the fore as the “Recession is nigh” meme gets the wind knocked out of its sails?
And despite a very deep reluctance to do so, Jerome Powell over at the Fed is forced to deliver yet another 75 bp hike in September, even as his latest “Neutral rate is 2.50% and we are there now” declaration is shredded and scattered to the winds?
That cannot be very good for the current bulls who have been vigorously pushing-up stock prices and especially the Tech sector on the Impending Recession = end of rate hikes = rate cuts next year theme.
Interesting to see how this plays against inflation number next week. Maybe the inflation has peaked narrative will be forced to change to inflation has plateaued.
Interesting possibilities ahead.
Emery on August 5, 2022 at 8:48 am said:
^^ SiTD’s CEO of Doom & Gloom
Brought to you but the guy who predicted economic disaster when Trump was elected.
It would be difficult to find a person who knows less about economics than Emery.
^^ SiTD’s Dept of Doom & Gloom
Last month’s job growth and wage growth both revised higher.
MP, you should know better than most accurate trendlines are the ones that only have one data point.
So you are buying? Put your money where your mouth is.
I love people who try to time the market — I make money off of those suckers.
My wife and I bought our first house in Houston, TX, in October 1980. Mortgage rates were running about 18.5 – 19%. The builder, in an effort to sell houses, bought points and got us to 16% on a VA loan. The day we signed the paperwork, the prime was 21%.
Emery, you need to pay attention to how DemoCommies tout employment and unemployment. When unemployment runs out on a person, they give up looking or take a part time gig, Dems count it as job growth. Further, there is a huge difference between jobs CREATED vs actual employment.
This is what spin looks like:
https://twitter.com/JohnKicklighter/status/1555545043116724224
“With today’s net increase in NFPs, the total number of employed persons in America has hit 152.536 Mln – that erases the pandemic slump and marks a new record”
Look at the frikkin’ graph — it’s a “record” we would have broken 2 years ago if not for economy-crippling covid restrictions & lockdowns.
The 80’s were a watershed era for me. I got out of the Navy in 84, went back to Cali and spent a few years going to school, got a nice job, bought a house and was generally very prosperous. But by 88, I knew I had to gtfo of there. The politics were swinging wildly to the left of course, but it wasn’t only that. It was the shallow, vapid people all around me.
My enduring vision of the late 80’s is the 30+ yr old big hair girl, wearing shoulder pads, driving in the ubiquitous BMW 320i, with the stupid ass “Baby on Board” sign in the window. She would have been going to an office job, having left her kid with a stranger, so she and her husband could afford to finally buy some furniture to furnish the empty house they couldn’t afford to buy in the first place. That kid would have known his pet fish better than his parents by the age of 18, and fucking hated them for that. There was no way I would ever raise kids in that environment.
Made plans; sold everything; bought a 17′ moving truck and moved to the good old, rock solid, common sense, meat and potatoes North West /s where I knew no one, and had no job waiting. lol…man, if I could take that decision back.
Despite woolly’s hysteria, actual economic indicators are good. Even inflation is beginning to ease. People are working and making good money, taking vacations, adding to their homes, sending their kids to college. Relax and don’t listen to the hysteria designed to get more clicks.
UMMP, that also means that only 47% of the population works. And of that 47%, many pay nothing in income taxes.
I may be overly optimistic, but I feel like (true) recession fears are overstated. We are getting out of a biggest (Covid) party of our lives with huge government support across the world, upheaval major parts of the economy (positive and negative), huge shocks to our supply chains.
We are now in a hangover / re-adjustment stage and it is quite possible that the economy might dip into a technical recession over some quarters, I don’t think it automatically means a prolonged deep recession / depression.
We should keep an eye on demand and employment levels, which are holding up for now. If those start to go, then we are likely going to a proper recession.
^ Party? What a disgusting analogy.
Speaking of the 80’s
“Inflation figure that the Fed follows closely hits highest level since January 1982”
An inflation gauge that the Federal Reserve uses as its primary barometer jumped to its highest 12-month gain in more than 40 years in June, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday.
The personal consumption expenditures price index rose 6.8%, the biggest 12-month move since the 6.9% increase in January 1982. The index rose 1% from May, tying its biggest monthly gain since February 1981.
Excluding food and energy, so-called core PCE increased 4.8% from a year ago, up one-tenth of a percentage point from May but off the recent high of 5.3% hit in February. On a monthly basis, core was up 0.6%, its biggest monthly gain since April 2021.
The story is on CNBC
So we have the shit economy, the drugs, the new disease being spread among sodomites, Russia and China bearing down. All we need is the big hair girl in shoulder pads and next thing you know, noodle arm, leftist soi boys will cut their faggy man buns into sweet mullets.
@ jdm
The thing is that everybody and their grandmother was happy for the free money and the free lunch and 20% house appreciation per year, stocks doubling and tripling and quadrupling and Tesla going to the stratosphere together with crypto going into the millions and zillions. It was a crazy “party” to say it mildly.
We have a very high number of underemployed people/low labor participation rate. When you reduce the denominator (people ready to work), employment rate goes up (and unemployment down). A VERY tough mathematical concept for libturds to grasp, I know. Impossible I say. And simply incomprehensible for mindless trollbots.
I am not an economist, but can someone (with intellect above the level of an earthworm, with apologies to earthworms everywhere) please tell me how we have a contracting economy if we are adding jobs at a record pace? Let me see if the reasoning is correct – adding jobs means more output, more output means somebody is making more stuff more employed people who are producing would have the means to pay for. Productivity should be up and economy should be humming. And yet… I am on the supply side of things and there are still shortages everywhere, logistics are a mess and prices are sky high. And, nobody’s buying and everyone is telling me demand is down across all sectors. Economic situation in Eu and especially in China (firsthand knowledge) is a lot worse than anyone talks about and its’ not like US is running a trade surplus (we are very much in the red). So how can US be adding this many jobs? Where are they all going? Did DOD contractors start hiring Studies’ majors to churn out projectiles for the Ukranian war machine? Or are we seeing fun with numbers perpetrated by a bunch of Biden syndicate accolytes? To be revised after the election so that “red wave” can be blamed for the decline? Am I cynical or a realist?
/“Since the overall participation rate has declined due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old.
The 25 to 54 participation rate increased in July to 82.4% from 82.3% in June, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 80.0% from 79.8% the previous month.
Both are slightly below the pre-pandemic levels and indicate almost all of the prime age workers have returned to the labor force.
Construction employment increased 32 thousand and is now 82 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.”/
https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2022/08/comments-on-july-employment-report.html
Manufacturing added 30 thousand jobs and is now 41 thousand above the pre-pandemic level.”
And Emery, we’ve got a trillion dollar deficit, sky high inflation, super low work force participation, and the Democrats are about to pass a bill that would juice spending, the deficit, and inflation even more. It’s really 1978/9 all over again.
Making the genius of Reagan all the more important. Now admittedly, Carter did a few things with deregulation that helped, and wow, wouldn’t it be nice if Biden would remember his history?
So they replaced guaranteed tax revenue from scrapping carried interest, With a tax on share buybacks that only raise revenue if companies use it (avoidable taxes)? These people must realize buybacks help the average Joe with S&P companies in his pension, whereas carried interest serves a very niche community of wealthy people?
How is this good policy?
My theory: the paltry and ineffectual carried interest provision was put in there precisely so Sinema could extract it, get a “win,” and be brought on board.
“It’s game time, against ourselves”
If, after all we’ve lived and suffered through the past 20 years you’re still thinking the degenerate 40% of the American population is any part of ‘us’, you’ve already lost, boss.
The Soviet Union fed it’s population with the notion that the West was degenerate. In that, they were right. The seeds were always there, but generations of Americans past crushed them when the sprouted. The Communists preached degeneracy grew from capitalism. In that, they were wrong.
The West is degenerate as fuck; in my view, beyond repair. But capitalism didn’t breed the fetid mob that seethes over our beautiful land. Complacency and blind trust in Democracy, running on automatic fed and nourished them.
Plato, despite never having lived it, predicted Democratic government would fail eventually, in exactly the way it has.
Imagine having that kind of clear insight.