The Economy of the 70s and 80s

[Griffin NoName]

Re. sub-prime, I now realise that as usual I have failed to realise this is just a term I had never heard used for something I already knew. I do wish someone would invent a language brain plug in. Thanks for clarification and the relief of clearing part of my brain for re-use for other things.

[goat starer]

House prices are falling here too.

not up my way they arent! when you are so undervalued (even at a regional level) to start with the worst that happens is stability. In fact prices are still rising here quite substantially (although less quickly than before). You can still buy houses up here for £60,000. i love watching those posh rich southerners squirm in their negative equity! 

[Griffin NoName]

i love watching those posh rich southerners squirm in their negative equity! 

More fun than watching all the southerners who live in poverty is it?

Where is it best to be poor? Let's have a vote on it.

[Sibling Chatty]

<<the current level of inflation still looks reasonable (so far) even with US$90+* per oil barrel. My initial reading is that the economy is more resilient now than then and with low interest rates (compared with the 80s).>>

Zono, don't look at "economic indicators' and other manipulatable factoids. Look at the actual impact of the economics of the day.

Homelessness. Pre-Ronnie Ray-gun, it was almost a "I choose to be homeless" issue...few mentally ill homeless, few families homeless. Ronnie dumped the mental institutions out onto the streets. "Mainstreamed" them into the community. IOW, gave 'em a little disability check and dumped them out to become targets for every evil out there, many of them going off meds and self-medicating with alcohol. More recently, it's been families, especially single Moms--some abandoned woman and her kids, but plenty of full families as well. (Guy loses job, guy can't provide, guy gets depressed or alcoholic or suicidal or blames bad luck on wife and kids and takes off.) Net result, the homeless, or marginally sheltered population is overwhelming.

[Marginally sheltered...Multiple 'families' living in a too-small homes, taking turns on who gets to sleep in the beds and when, and working as much as possible to keep the roof over the heads, food on the table and the lights on. Better apartment complexes watch for it, less observant ones have often found as many as 15 people sharing a 2 BR1 BA apartment. Same with houses. Lower income neighborhoods especially, where the cover is thin already, you find homes where a whole 'nother family, plus a spare cousin, uncle, aunt or set of grandparents have moved in. Doesn't fly with the middle classes, but then one needn't consider the lower classes...they don't count.]

Hunger. Just ask the food pantries.
http://tinyurl.com/2g5ae6
http://tinyurl.com/2zho5j
In South Florida  http://tinyurl.com/2hp6le

We're barely living hand to mouth here, and we've been helping support people with less than us. Dan's gone back to work 2 days a week to keep food on the table and heat on in the house. Prices have gone to levels that are affecting my ability to have proper nutrition for the health demands I have.

Transportation? Don't even let me start. The US has no mass transport to speak of. Gas prices have caused a problem for low wage long distance commuters. I originally switched medical providers over gas and parking prices--as well as the fact that the care was less than optimal. (Still the only 'specialists' I can see, because New Orleans is out of the question. 400 miles driving there, and 400 back? Got a bank I can rob for gas? Even with a place to stay provided free by Lance Armstrong's group and the ACS working together, I can't go. There are basically no jobs in this town. Everybody drives somewhere to work. The amount of ride-sharing was high before...ever see 5 people in an old Geo Metro?
http://tinyurl.com/34gxcz You know, the hatchback that looks like a big toe?? They've got 6 in their carpool now, so they're using a slightly bigger car. VERY slightly bigger... http://tinyurl.com/3bx6kd

Things MAY look OK on paper. The "gross" looks just fine from the top...it's that the growth is ALL at the top. The bottom's flattened, and the middle is continuing to collapse.

You put me and Bill Gates in a room, and the average income is phenomenal. You put ALL of us and Bill gates in that room, and the average income is STILL phenomenal. But that doesn't improve MY situation. You raise the income of the top 5% by a few percentage points, good for them. It does nothing for the rest of us. THAT is how the economic reporting goes to convince those not affected that there's no problem. There's a problem.

Don't even get me started on health care. In order to keep my friend from being TOTALLY without pain meds, although she's been on the  strongest Fentanyl patch available, with Vicodin (2 vicodin ES, along with the patch, mind you) for breakthrough pain, I share my meds.
http://www.globalrph.com/fentconv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicodin
Even using generics, her "indigent care" funds ran oun 3 weeks ago. We're sharing my Ultram (generic). I get what's considered a low dose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol

Apply for disability?? She did, over 4 years ago. Even when she gets it, there will be a 30 month wait for Medicare to kick in, unless they actually honor her first date of application.
http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/disability-backlog-pr.htm

By the way, they're 'skating' the definition of "aged" cases by RE-DATING all appeals as of the date NOT of the appeal, but of the appeal hearing, which can take 8-15 months to set.

It may look OK from there. From down here, there's too much bleeding to stop it without some radical help.

http://tinyurl.com/368r63
http://www.nhchc.org/Children/

Don't tell me this economy doesn't look bad when one of the fastest growing advocacy programs in the US is run by these folks:
http://www.naehcy.org/  http://www.homelessfund.org/

That was needed to overcome problems cause by all the loopholes caused by this:
http://www.ed.gov/programs/homeless/guidance.pdf

And it's getting worse, not better.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I've stayed out of this, since I was born at the very tail end of the 80's (1989) and I know very little about the economy of the time, other then what my parents have told me (the 80's were the best time of their financial lives together), so I have a few questions.

When Ronnie turned into a vegetable, they realised just how empty that shell could be.

I assume you mean the Alzheimer's. I thought he didn't go veggie until the mid-90's--could you clarify what you mean?

Greenspan and others have had their little pet economic theories that they assumed would lead to the Nirvana they claim to have provided.

I understand your disdain for the theories, but they're based on the past behavior of the market. Some use of them is better than flying blind, IMO. Sticking totally to one theory makes no sense, but picking and choosing based on the situation makes sense.

[beagle]

On the Reagan thing it was a running joke thoughout his presidency that he wasn't the highest IQ president the U.S. ever had.  Whatever you think of his policies I still  think he was smart in another sense. He knew he didn't need to do everything himself, and just put people who could do them in key roles.  While Carter, Ford and so on looked totally out of their depth, Reagan just did his folksy, totally-at-ease act, and gave the impression of someone who would never be rattled or panicked by events.
Whatever you think of the plot of the play, it was a good theatre, in the "speak softly and carry a big stick" U.S. presidential tradition.


With Greenspan, I guess there are two issues. Whether what he did was good for The U.S. economy as a whole, and whether what he did was good for particular groups of individuals. On the second point people could say it wasn't his role to say how the cake was divided; that's a political issue, and both parties chose to take his advice.

On the first most people seem to think he was smart at avoiding economic slowdown (e.g. especially in the aftermath of the Asian property/LTCM/ Russian default crises).  However some say that his technique, dropping interest rates at times of trouble, led to a culture of excessive risk-taking that led to things like sub-prime. Guess the question for the critics is whether they would rather have had the recession then and there.

[ivor]

Recently I read in a newspaper article that inflation is a good thing because it's going to help with our trade deficit.   I don't think it will help much since we're a service economy. 

The problem with our economy is that Democrats and Republicans keep printing money and creating inflation.  They do this to pay off our debts with smaller dollars.  The big problem is other countries that have their currency pegged to the dollar are tired of importing our inflation.  The low interest rates aren't helping either.  Other countries are dumping dollars because of the dollars declining worth.  Now other countries are unpegging the dollar from our currency causing even more inflation.  We could be like pre-WWII Germany soon.

[Sibling Chatty]

Grey,

Reagan was a Democrat, an active and vocal Democrat before he became a Republican. The Republicanism came with the marriage to Noncy, who was Republican based on the John Birch style Republicanism of a step-father that held her at arm's length her entire life. Her entire existence was dependent on a father figure that literally didn't care about her, about what she did...about a thing. Her mother was the stepfather's heir and she would be her mother's heir, IF the old man didn't leave all his money to the political causes that took his attention.

Marrying and 'reforming' a former Democratic spokesman was a good ploy. It got his attention. To stay in his good graces was worth a fortune. (There's a lot more sordid Hollywood gossip to go with this, but--meh.) Politically, Reagan was an empty suit his whole career. He got his script, learned his lines and got in trouble if he wandered off-script.

However, he was good at what he did. You just have to suspect the reasons WHY, and wonder about WHO was in charge.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Zono, don't look at "economic indicators' and other manipulatable factoids. Look at the actual impact of the economics of the day.

The reason I want to understand the numbers isn't because I eat the 'trickle down' tale, but precisely because I suspect that the 'numbers' economy wasn't as bad as the corporatists claim and that the so called 'economic reforms' made by them didn't have the impact they so proudly say.

OTOH I do believe that higher taxation slows the economy* and that -used properly- can stimulate job creation.

* There is of course the question of the social cost of such policy. I agree wholeheartedly that it is better to have a slower economy with less poverty as the Nordics, but taxation isn't the only factor in play. My impression is that the policy wasn't just regarding taxation but to mount a corporatist state, which would account for all the social impact of the last 25 year policies.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Chatty, that doesn't explain the veggie comment, other than suggesting he was less than bright (which he may not have been). Nor your comment about economic theories.

[The Meromorph]

Chatty, that doesn't explain the veggie comment, other than suggesting he was less than bright (which he may not have been). Nor your comment about economic theories.

From what I heard, saw, and was told...
Starting in the last year of his first term, he was increasingly in and out of contact with reality as the Alzheimers got rapidly worse. Some quick rescheduling when he was totally out of contact kept it quiet for about two years, the last three years he was rarely 'lucid' but he was still capable of learning and following a script (with a good prompter passing as an 'aide'), even though he rarely remembered what had happened afterwards. After the second term, he basically wasn't needed to follow scripts and the 'prompter' wasn't available. That's when everyone was allowed to see how bad the Alzheimers was...
A lot of people co-operated to cover it up while he was in office. and the people who mostly thought he was wonderful were quite ready to believe he was fine...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Ah. That explains it. I was under the impression he didn't have Alzheimer's (or was not diagnosed) until a few years after his last term ended.

[Sibling Chatty]

According to the ALZ specialists (I am also an admin on a Senior Caregivers forum that has an extensive ALZ section, with several ALZ specialists who participate frequently so I know a LOT about ALZ even though it's not an issue with Mom) RR showed public signs of ALZ dating from before his first Presidential campaign. There is a slow enough ramp-up from the initial signs that to a non-trained observer, it's just considered a 'forgetful moment' or similar.

His own children speculate that one reason Nancy kept them all (except her son) so isolated from him is that there was a considerable amount of downtime needed to get him to coherency even early on in his first term. The 'normal' arc of ALZ isn't a fast one, figured on even a slow "typical" time-line, he was exhibiting obvious symptoms by the first years of his first term, and definitely incapable of proper decisions long before the second race.

The tragedy of his children being kept from him is just another thing that makes me consider Nancy the biggest opportunistic B-word that ever lived.

It would have put GHWB in the WH earlier. Big Deal. But, it was to her; her own son is pretty stand-offish with her now over what she did to his half-siblings, much less how she treated his Dad as a puppet just for power. Hope that power keeps her company in her old age.

[Griffin NoName]

I've seen plenty go slowly with ALZ but my uncle took about a year from start to death. I'm not sure - if you get it young, which he was, is it faster?

[Sibling Chatty]

The younger ALZ patients are probably (according to the docs) dealing with a more damaged "chromosomal" aberration that the average older aged ALZ patient. (Medical guesses)

The total mechanism of ALZ isn't understood, but there is much anecdotal evidence that the damage is harsher and faster in those that evince early. The speculations on WHY there is ALZ are myriad, we know some families have hereditary cases, especially in females. (My friend Susan is at least 4th gen, from all family history, my cousin Terry is 5th gen that we know of, and has middle aged daughters that are just waiting, scared.) Others, it may be a new, fresh genetic aberration, or it MAY be some chemical exposure, but nobody knows.