The following bar graph may be the largest factor in past/present US federal elections. Not that other factors don’t come into play.
Much food for thought and much to discuss if anyone here is interested in tossing this around.
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My original economic frame of reference was the 1960s. Everybody seemed to be doing just a bit better year over year. And it didn’t seem all that difficult to do so.
Comparatively, as a young adult, the early seventies were difficult, but boomers were told that it was because we were too self-centered and selfish. IOW it was us and not the economy. The above graph says otherwise.
By the mid-seventies, a new normal was in place. Those of us that had adjusted and were beginning to advance professionally did okay the late seventies and early eighties. However, in much of California, that doing okay didn’t include home ownership. Very different from the late fifties and early sixties when young couples (like 18 to 22 year olds) bought their starter homes.
It’s been downhill ever since, and I’ve never quite figured out how average Americans couldn’t see that at the beginning of the Reagan years.
The first event to enter my thoughts is the ascension of the (im)moral majority around 1979, closely followed by St. Ronnie and greatly expanded union bashing.
Carter got hit with the second OPEC oil embargo and that along with his not so skilled economic team led to high inflation and interest rates. Great for those with savings that could shift them into T-bills. Horrible for anyone that was looking to buy a house. For those that had an economic frame of reference that was formed in the fifties, a Republican looked good to them. Late Boomers viewed the Nixon years as having been relatively good for their parents. Thus, we saw the olds and youngs going for Reagan.
But given the increasing income inequality since 2008, it should be surprising that Democrats were lost this year. “Hope” only last so long when the promised change doesn’t materialize.
Yes, I’m afraid hope has given way to despair for far too many.
Maybe not to despair as much as adjusting to the changed reality that’s now been with us for over a dozen years with no end in sight. It’s not like the Great Depression. We have plenty of screens with which to amuse ourselves and we’re fat instead of hungry most of the time.
No wonder those that carry around the nineties as their economic frame of reference look fondly upon that time. Even though it was only slightly better than the decade before. What they miss/can’t see is that the federal policies put in place during those two decades were instrumental in what came later.
Good thing people can be endlessly amused by and admiring of the wealthy and/or elites. The Brits have their queen and USians have their Presidents and their “Kardashians” (only the latest of a long string of useless people famous for nothing).
My frame of reference for economic as well as quite a few other things.
The late, great Hunter S. Thompson
Maybe it has to do with not being a guy, but I didn’t much care for “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Or maybe it’s that I have no appreciation for drugs and Las Vegas. Very much liked “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.”
Possibly my favorite book from that era is “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
Nineties were a whole lot better than the Eighties for me. Best time of my life economically, but then in my profession we benefited from the desktop and internet booms. I was a white collar professional then. Now, I’m just another blue collar animal.
As the above chart indicates, the nineties were somewhat better for everyone than the eighties. But significantly better for a smaller portion of the labor force in the right field at the right time. I did fine, but understood that it wasn’t so great for a lot of people which left me with a bit of guilt about doing well. The economic period that I recall the most fondly were the late seventies. Others shudder when I say that but it really was the last decent time for the working class.
They were OK for me, but I bought a house in 1971 before they got totally ridiculous in price and I worked for Uncle Sam so benefits and stability were good.
Ah, 1971 was at or near the last chance for working class people in parts of CA to buy a house. Didn’t have the income, down payment, or job security to do so myself. And only rarely in later years. My house purchase experiences were so hot either.
Bank gave me a break. Gave me the loan at 10% down. Told me my job was safe because I was civil service. Two years later we had a base closure. But they got their money back and prices had gone insane so I had enough to buy a house in Virginia for 20% down (and 8.5% interest).
I drove by the old house a few years ago (pre-crash). One like it was for sale down the block. I can’t afford to buy it today.
I knew a lot of young activists who were really excited about Obama and “Hope” and “Change you can believe in”. Some I knew through the Internet only, and some in person. I really hated to see their idealism and enthusiasm squandered. Under the circumstances, I can imagine that their enthusiasm has taken something of a hit.
Idealism and enthusiasm squashed never really comes back. Next stop is when living becomes really, really difficult. But then they are as vulnerable to the tunes of rightwing demagogues as a leaders that honestly want to do the people’s work.
Yes, my middle grandson was the one who persuaded me to vote for Obama in the 2008 primary. He was in High school at the time. He has always been socially conscious and was an enthusiastic volunteer. Now as an unemployed adult with no prospects, he is embittered. He and his girlfriend are living off the land with her Republican grandparents in rural Washington. She’s an Afghanistan veteran. Both are disenchanted with government and he flirted with voting for Romney. He never told me what he did, so I think he did it. He still looks to me for guidance on electronics, mechanics and fruit gardening, but not politics. He is on extended Medicaid and is grateful, but he really wants a JOB! Well, at least he isn’t laying around playing video games. He has thrown himself into learning farming with his usual enthusiasm. My sister tells me the grandparents are sort of survivalists. Their goal is to become totally self-sufficient. He’s teaching her how to graft trees, which I taught her. He’s very good with computers and networking. I taught him about computer hardware and Linux at an early age. He could go to school and become a computer programmer or technician, but he doesn’t want to have a six figure debt with no job like his older brother and the companies just want more H1-B’s anyway.
Back in the mainframe heyday of the seventies, computer programmers were in such short supply that companies hired people like your middle grandson and trained them. Among the senior programmers and managers that I met or worked with, few had degrees in computer programming. Most acquired their programming skills on the job.
Today, maybe the master farmer/nurseryman field is less crowded. Or I fell for the romanticism of Michael Pollen’s books. Except I really liked the how the puzzle pieces can be put together for an integrated, high yield, and sustainable farm. An older neighbor once told me about the time he was almost failing out of the Univ of Chicago and went home to Nebraska to tell his physician father that he would work on the farm that had been in the family for a few generations. His father told him to get back to school because he wasn’t smart enough to be a farmer.
That’s my older sister. They got a twofer because NOW was pushing them to advance women out of clerical/secretarial jobs.
That’s me. Most of my contemporaries were Physicists like me or Mathematicians or Electrical Engineers that fell in love with computers. I used to dream in code. I kept a pen and steno book on my nightstand to furiously write down the program I had dreamed during the night before it faded from memory. Damn good code, too. My best, seeing that I had no distractions. When, in the 21st Century a manager told me, “We only hire people with Computer Science or Software Engineering degrees”, I told him “When I started in this business, there were no such degrees. That’s like refusing to put Albert Einstein on your faculty because he never took a course in Relativity or Quantum Mechanics.”
You mean that Democrats disenchanted with Obama aren’t racists who ignore the fact that the Millenium hasn’t come? Say it isn’t so!
Did you mean …aren’t racists who ignore the fact that the Millenium has come?
The leftish hoi polloi are way overplaying “the opposition to Obama is racist” narrative. They’re now all on board with Loretta Lynch as AG because the GOP is opposed and haven’t bothered to look at her resume that makes her a “no go” for anyone that’s an honest Democrat/liberal.
Oh, well. We’ll soon be inundated with “all opposition to Hillary is sexist.”
It was sarcasm. Obviously poorly executed.
Re the sentence wording. Yes, you are right. Too much indirection there so I lost sight of it. Must be all those government memos I wrote in the ’70s.
Did I ever relate this anecdote? :
Our Admiral requested that i explain how I got some numbers in a memo that I wrote regarding how many parts we needed to stock to support a particular gas turbine engine. I responded in a formal memo that I had chosen the parts based on the manufacturer’s reliability projections (probably pretty good because it was a militarization of an airline engine) using the Black and Proschan Method. I explained the B&P method in an attachment.
About a week later, I guy I remotely knew approached me in the hall. He said, in a congratulatory tone, “Hey Tony! I saw your memo. That was a GREAT memo! I didn’t understand a DAMN word!” Then he pumped my hand. I realized then that in the bureaucracy, if no one knows what you said, they can’t attack you for it.
Not at all related but reminded me of the deck I had to get built (with very little money) because a sliding glass door to a four foot drop was some code violation.
Going with the minimum size that could be considered a deck and not a porch, I consulted some deck building book and figured out that it unfortunately required two beams. A lot of guys, mostly from work, were eager to participate in building the thing. So, I got all the lumber, had the piers poured, and scheduled the construction for a Saturday. Too many guys as it turned out; so, I wasn’t needed for the crew.
When it was done and I stepped out on it, one the guys said, “Yeah, I guess it did need the second beam.”