N2EY wrote:
In article , Mike Coslo writes:


N2EY wrote:

In article , Mike Coslo writes:



Mike Coslo wrote:


Len Over 21 wrote:



In article ,
(Gonad
the Librarian) writes:


snippage


You lived through the 70's...Jimmy Carter's economics and political
decisions almost bankrupted this nation, both financially and in fact.



Sounds like gunnery nursie didn't get promotion that time...


Sorry to break in on a comment that I didn't see the first time
here, Len.

If a person believes that President Carter's economic and political
policies almost bankrupted the country, I would suggest looking up the
historical date of August 15, 1971. See what happened on that date, and
the consequences of that action.




I'll see if anyone knows this one before giving it away.

Nobody have it yet? Jim, you're usually good at this sort of thing.


I thought I'd let others have a crack at it.

August 15, 1971: USA abandoned the gold standard.

Guess who was president.....

73 de Jim, N2EY


Good guess, but not quite.


Dang.


We were moving away from the Gold Standard
at that time. It was the date that President Richard Nixon instituted
Wage and Price controls. At that time, inflation was at the 4% level -
something considered intolerable.


Yep.

And Nixon was a Republican, who you would think would be a staunch supporter of
a free market and completely opposed to trying to control the economy byu
government fiat.

That was one of the most curious things I can remember in politics. At
the time, I was just out of school, so I didn't think much one way or
the other. But the results got my attention. The next deveral years were
just about impossible for me to get a job. 18 years old and single made
me almost unenployable for the next several years. The jobs that were
available were going to people with families, vets, etc I was on the
bottom of the list.


We soon found out just how "nice" a measly 4% inflation rate was. The
initial 90 day freeze turned into around 1000 days of "adjustments" that
soon saw the inflation rate at 13 percent in December of 1974. The rate
dropped after that, but what was handed to President Carter was an
economic train wreck, to put it mildly. This all culminated in an
inflation rate of 15 percent in March of 1980.


I was there, I remember. Interest rates went up even higher - I recall friends
paying 17% for home mortgages.

They must have had jobs too! 8^)


Of course back in those days you could deduct *all* consumer interest payments
so there was a silver lining come tax time.

From all I read, it's clear to me that the sudden jump in oil prices was a
major factor driving that inflation.

The Wage and price freeze was what turned me into an fiscal conservative!

Now, was that a "leeberal" mistake?


Nope.

73 de Jim, N2EY