Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How did the economy at the end of the 70's compare to now?

Just curious if anyone has done a comparison between how bad things were at the end of the Carter years and now. I know the big difference between the two situations is interest rates were very high then, and next to nothing now. But how did unemployment and the general outlook compare?

At least back then you got a good return on a CD in a bank from those high interest rates. No reason to invest in high risk funds to get an 8% return.

Then...high unemployment, high taxes, HIGH interest rates...I paid 21% to buy a piece of land and 9.75 for a 1st mortgage, and that was a good-guy rate. Housing was flat with the very high interest rates.

Gas prices were soaring, also. I remember being angry with $0.50 and $0.70/gallon prices. We had shortages and gas lines. Many stations would sell no more than 5-8 gallons to any one customer, if there was any gas to be had.

Here's some of what I remember from back then:

Double digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates. I was lucky enough to have a job, got big raises every year to keep pace with inflation, bought my first house and was happy to get a fixed rate mortgage at 13 3/4 and 3 points. The price of gas skyrocketed and you had to wait in line to get it.

If the Government still measured things the way they did then, we would have double digit unemployment and inflation today. The key difference is the interest rates.

I would say we are worse off now than back than.

We didn't have Obamacare looming like a guillotine or the end of the Nation State.

In 1983, I got a 14% mortgage (credit score 800+).

IIRC my first mortgage in '77 or so was close to 15% and a couple of years later when I was stationed in Va. Beach it was close to 17%.

Interest rates were in the high teens and job hunting was tough even with all the manufacturing jobs and corporate jobs still in country. Very Gloomy economic outlook, my BIL was in the Marines and he said morale was not great.

Mortgages were 14% and those 2500sq ft. two storys were selling for $140,000. Today mortgages are 6% and that same house is $350,000. I remember gas going from .60 cents to a dollar back then, today that just one price jump for the week. We work on a much smaller profit margin to day then we ever did back then. I think the economy is worse today.

Certainly people are more frightened now about their prospects than they were then, but back then we Boomers were still young.

Just curious as it seems that that timeframe in many ways compares to todays economic climate. I was in elementary school at the time and my dad's business was doing well (as far as I knew) so I really didn't have a grasp on how bad things were.

It also seems our countries economoy has tended to run on a roughly 10 year boom bust cycle with the end of one decade and beginning of the next being on the bust side, and the middle of the decades on the upswing.

Debt to GDP ratio then was a small fraction what it is today, due to our manufacturing strength at that time. That's why the Fed could afford to correct the economy by raising interest rates. If they tried that today, it would instantly crash our economy and the dollar. That tool is gone, in other words. All they can do now is print and print, which will soon also lead to a dollar and economy crash, i.e., there's no way out this time, as there was then, due to the loss of our manufacturing base since then.

In the '70s I received $2.00 per week pocket money, now I pay a couple of thousand a month in bills.
So comparatively I would say now sucks.

Right...Jap cars were still a curiosity, and there were NO cheap Chinkk imported goods destroying our domestic manufacturing. Still, jobs were dmned few and far between.

Coke went from 25 cents to 50 cents in a matter of months in the vending machines.

I was apalled I tell ya. Apalled.

High interest, high inflation
We also had 144 Americans hostage in Iran

There was not a little fee or service charge on every little detail every time money changed hands. Utilities were cheap. Gas was rationed some. Construction work was spotty sometimes, but it always came back. I was in my 20s and had a damn good time.

Most women didn't work. Most that did, didn't work full time jobs. The vast majority of men with steady work earned wages sufficient to support wife and kids.

Late 70's truely sucked. Waiting in line to buy gasoline for hours, odd days or even days depending on your license number. Gasoline prices doubled in 3 years or so. Outrageous inflation, I was very lucky to get a 12% mortgage, only because I was a veteran. Auto prices also doubled in only a few years, maybe 4 or 5. Housing the same. Not a job to be had, far worse than now.

I'll take today's situation over the 70's anytime.

i was a teenager and had discovered beer and chicks, so life was good.