I seem to recall dire predictions in 1979 that overpopulation would have completely destroyed up by now. Six billion, yikes!
I just figured the killer bees would cull the human population.
…then there was the nuclear winter and new ice age that would further cull the herd.
-XT
As much as people still don’t seem to get it, it’s looking like hindsight is 20/200 with astigmatism and a detached retina.
74-75 was worse.
There were gas shortages and rations that late? I was lead to believe that happened the first half of the seventies, not the second.
1979-80 was worse as the Soviet Union at least appeared to be a serious threat to us and our Western Europe Allies. However, at least we were still able to think we wore the white hats even if they were looking a bit tattered at the time.
The failed Iranian Hostage rescue was amazingly depressing for many of us. There were questions of if we would fail before the USSR did. Don’t forget that the UK was also going through very tough times are the same time. There was some justification to doubt that the Western democracies were going to triumph.
Both now and then however, sure beat the 30s.
Jim
The Soviet Union was a Communist nation, and if I recall had been a key player in the ComIntern (all my books are at home, so I’m going off the top of my head).
Soviet money and organizers would flood into a country, and help build up either A- A communist party or B- A communist revolutionary group, both. They were following what they felt was their role in the Dialectic of exporting communism, and thus ushering in the global Workers Paradise. Cue parade and happy young Novomberists giving out flowers on the streets.
In Afghanistan, a communist government came to power, either through elections or seizing power, I don’t recall which.
Their first act was to call on the Soviet Union to assist in crushing the warlords and non-communists still controlling a lot of the country.
The Sov Union marched in troops, tanks, choppers, etc. and gave a HUGE amount of gear to the Peoples Army of Afghanistan.
None of this helped, in the long run, as the mujahadeen were supported by both the US, and other nations that weren’t keen on the USSR ( a nominally atheist state, which drew in the upstanding muslims like one Osama bin Laden).
But this was not the first time the Soviets had done this. The popular uprisings in Hungary in the 50’s was put down in the same way.
Thus, the Soviet Union kept a tight reign on their satellite states, while giving the illusion that it was a Union of partners.
Remember when Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia declared themselves no longer part of the USSR, everyone held their breath to see if tanks were going to come rolling into Vilnia et al.
The OP left out one significant fact about the good old days: not only was inflation running at record levels, but unemployment was high, too - a combination that economists had thought was impossible (silly economists).
While I’m inclined to think the American economy was worse then than it is now, I’m not terribly comfortable with the present situation. One thing we have now is the massive outsourcing of jobs to overseas, and with that an ever-balooning balance of trade deficit (resulting in more American capital and debt being controled by foreigners; we’re in deep shit if it ever occurs to them to put the squeeze on us).
In the late '70s we were importing 20-odd percent of the oil we used. OPEC restricted demand and rather made a mess of things: 55 mph speed limits, lines at the gas pump, thermostats set at 68 degrees in the winter (quipped Johnny Carson: "I think Nixon wishes he could turn everything back to '68), the president travelling by commercial airliner to make a conservation point. Anyway. Now our dependence on foreign oil has trebled or somesuch. If our imports were suddenly shut off, the result would be massive.
Keep your fingers crossed. That may be the only thing keeping us shiny side up.
I’ve looked over the Wikipedia article and have found no serious complaints about its presentation, so I will defer to that entry.
My reaction was to the statement that there was “no provocation.” I certainly do not believe that the Soviets were any more justified in propping up their client state than the U.S. was in propping up its client state in South Vietnam, but in the world of realpolitik, the situation can hardly be described as lacking in provocation from the Soviet perspective.
The dollar is in the shitter, and there has already been a move by some countries to increase their non-US currency holdings at the expense of the dollar. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are both in need of some sort of massive federal bailout which will only futrher exacerbate the dollar’s foreign exchange woes.
While I agree with Shagnasty that the threat of existential annihilation may not be on the same level as it was 28 years ago (though most of those USSR nukes are still there), the economic picture seems, to me, to look even bleaker than it was back then.
The CPI report for June is out. It has inflation running at an annualized rate of five percent - the highest it has been in twenty-six years.
Another interesting datum, while I’m here: wheat is up to about eight dollars per bushel. I do not recall it ever being that high.
If these trends continue disco is poised to take over the world in 1987.
Great, great thoughts by many; thank you.
I was going to twist the original question a bit and ask: did we feel worse in 1979-80 than now?. That was the main point brought up in the Olympic Hockey documovie: that Americans really were emotionally depressed as a nation.
But then I thought: well, that pretty much sums up how we feel right now, at least many of us. The recent failure of Viet Nam, the recent failure of the Presidency (Nixon/Watergate), the terrible economy, the crisis in Iran, all gave us reason to feel downtrodden and in poor spirits…but our terrible economy, the recent failure of Iraq, the failure of the Presidency (in performance by the majority of the population, in ethics by many), the crisis in Iran…our country’s spirit is pretty much at the same level, I’m guessing.
The consensus of the posts above is that, in fact, we are better off now, despite our mood. I’m an optimist by nature, but I really believe that our current situation (economic and financial) has the possibility, though unlikely, to really melt-down into something much worse. Since “perfect storm” is on the buzzword-ban-list, I’ll say that an unlikely but plausible combination of financial institution failures, worsening economy (unemployment, tightening of credit), and an unexpected breeze could cause a collapse.
Purely speculation; I am not an economist or historian.
We are very close to a change in administration. One candidate will bring massive changes and one will at least bring change and even if he attacks Iran it will probably just be a quick surgical strike and no occupation. Either way by January things should improve from the last eight years as both men running are better, smarter and more honest than Bush/Cheney.
Jim (The optimism of it will be hard to be worse)
It’s not even close. We had FAILED in Vietnam. Not only did we fail, but we turned our backs on the South Vietnamese and left them to face the music…and those of us alive then watched (myself, in horror) as the North Vietnamese crushed the last resistance and drove their tanks through the capital, as the refugees screamed and fought to get out, surged against the gates of our embassy, etc etc. It was horrible.
Then there was Iran…again, we watched in horror as the Shah’s government folded, as revolutionaries stormed through the capital, as our embassy was captured and as the old guard Iranian’s (and in a lot of cases their families) either fled the country or posed for gun fire. I had an uncle who worked in the oil industry who was actually in Tehran when the embassy was captured and managed to get out of the country with the help of some Iranian friends he had (the fact that he is hispanic, dark skinned and spoke Farsi didn’t hurt either), so I may have been paying more attention than some to what was going on at the time wrt events other than the hostage crisis. Still, it was yet another large blow to the US.
Then there was the economy. All through the 70’s we had economic crisis after economic crisis. Gas lines and shortages, inflation, unemployment. This was going on for years with seemingly no end or hope in sight. It’s hard to convey to someone who didn’t live through it just how bad people THOUGHT things were, or how depressed the country was at that time.
Contrast that to today. Yes, we are fighting two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. But neither of them are any where close to the brutality we faced in Vietnam…and neither of them have we lost (yet). We have yet to see our troops pulled out of either place to run back home, we have yet to see the insurgents rolling through the streets of the capital, or those currently in power fleeing with their families…or lined up against walls and shot down. Those things might be in the future, but they haven’t happened yet, so there is really no comparison.
There really is nothing to compare to how helpless we felt over what happened in Iran, or how we felt with the hostage crisis, nor what we felt with the ridiculous rescue attempt, it’s failure or it’s loss.
On the economic front…it’s not even close. Our economy is certainly not doing well, but there are no long lines at the gas pump, we have yet to dip into actual recession, inflation is up but it’s no where near what it was, same with unemployment. People THINK this is bad…but that’s because either they weren’t alive then or have somehow forgotten. By every metric I know the economy today is miles ahead of where it was in the 70’s or even early 80’s.
I think a better analogue to today would be just after 9/11. We had the technology and IT bubble bust. We were attacked on our own soil and were shocked. The economy was doing poorly. And we had Bush.
-XT
I graduated college in 1979 - and it took a year to find a job. I remember lots of my friends in the same situation. I remember layoffs and budget cuts. And I remember my sis and her husband, just married, trying to buy a house and giving up for a few years. And then of course there was the cold war, and Ray gun saying he was going to bomb Moscow in 15 minutes.
But with all of that, I think its worse now. Its not just that one bank has had to be taken over by the Feds. Or that gas is high, as are food prices. Or that budget cuts and layoffs are everywhere. Its that everyone seems to have a fear, greater than we had during the cold war. Everyone I talk with seems to be pessimistic about the future, scared by what this administration has done to this country and whether anyone elected pres will be able to fix it, and esp the fact that what happens here effects what happens in the world.
Then again, it could just be because I am 30 years older and have more to worry about…
>We didn’t have 24 hour news coverage then either. We didn’t have, “PANIC NOW!!!” journalism on every station
Then again, this could be part of the problem.
Kind makes one think “You know, that Nixon wasn’t so bad after all.”
Exactly. 
-XT
You think the fear we have today is greater than the cold war??? Jeez, I remember it well. There were constant peace marches. There was the ‘countdown to midnight’ to scare everyone to death.
Carter’s energy policy was a joke. Let’s see - there is an energy shortage. Whatever should we do? First, let’s put huge roadblocks in front of nuclear power, the only other large-scale energy source we have. Then let’s scare everyone by telling them that world production of oil is going to peak in 6-8 years (this was in 1977, mind you). Then let’s tell them to conserve, and to install two and a half million solar panels on their houses.
This policy was ridiculous. It made a joke of Jimmy Carter, wearing sweaters and turning off the lights in the White House. Do you have any idea how much solar power cost in 1977? It’s not cost effective today, after 30 more years of development. There was no battery technology to go along with it. A lot of people listened to him and installed hugely expensive solar panels, which generated very little power and wound up being dismantled over time. A huge waste.
His policy was also incoherent. One of his principles was that his energy policy must not hurt the economy. Then a few paragraphs later he called for ‘meaningful, painful sacrifice’. Uh huh.
At a time when Americans were already feeling bad about themselves and the world, Carter kept repeating that they needed to ‘sacrifice’. He gave a speech in which he declared that the country was in ‘malaise’. He wrung his hands and issued doom-and-gloom statements constantly. He’s the reason why the optimistic Reagan won the next election in a landslide.
The Wiki entry looks accurate, but incomplete. In short, the Soviets heavily supported a military coup in Afghanistan. That coup was a coalition of Marxists (the Soviet puppets), and nationalists. When the coup was over, the Marxists purged the new government of all the undesirables, leaving it a fairly pure Soviet client government. The people didn’t like this, and revolted against the new government. So the government called for ‘help’ from the Soviet Union, which invaded the country at the request of the puppet government it helped to install in the first place.
A proper Iraq analogy would be if the CIA had funded Saddam and provided him with weapons and support to overthrow the government. Then had Saddam kill all the Muslims in the new government, declare that Iraq was now a Christian nation, forbid many Muslim practices, and rule with an iron fist, killing anyone who disagreed. Then having the U.S. invade when the people revolted, because the ‘legitimate’ Hussein government requested help from the kindly Americans.
Nothing remotely like that happened. The Soviet invasion was worse than the American invasion, for many reasons. One is that the Afghans weren’t threatening anyone else. Another is that the Soviets invaded to install a tyrant, and Americans invaded to depose one, and are trying to help support a democratic government. A third is that the Americans were not brutal savages like the Soviets, who tried to control the country in very Stalinesque ways, such as terrorizing communities by dropping cluster munitions inside children’s toys or executing family members in front of the family to teach them a lesson. Pretty much the same kind of tactics Saddam wound up swinging from a rope for doing.
Don’t forget that in 1979 The Dukes Of Hazzard premired, I’d say that’s reason enough to say we’re better off now.