I'm intrigued by the consumer price index graph. Does it mean that a 1910 dollar bought you about the same goods and services as a 1790 dollar? Mindboggling.
WTF Happened in 1971?
31–40 of 46 posts
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#32The Powell Memorandum, the declaration of war by the Republican Party against the continued existence of a Middle Class. The war is going swimmingly (for them), and they have persuaded their victims to vote for it all. Look up "managed population". It has nothing to do with fiat currency, and everything to do with deliberate policy to concentrate wealth in fewer hands.
> Look up "managed population".
Do you have concrete sites you would like us to see? If so, please link them.
This general trope of "just google a term I'm throwing out there" is a hallmark of conspiracy theorists. Please don't be one of them.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#33See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock .
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#34There was a tax cut that took effect as-of January, 1971. Actually, the government sold it to the public as repeal of a 5% tax surcharge effective 30 June 1970, but they did not change form 1040 to identify which income and/or deductions were in which half of the year, so it actually worked out to be a 2.5% reduction in tax rates as-of 1 January 1970, and a 2.5% reduction as of January 1971. With these 2 pay raises from the government a year apart, employers may have felt less pressure to raise wages.
In addition, note that the first year of very high birth rates during the baby boom was 1952. The non-college bound high-school graduates would all be entering the labor force in 1970 and 1971. As the draft lottery numbers were drawn late in 1969, those who got the high numbers felt free to leave college and enter the work force without fear of the draft, most often at the end of the school year in June 1970, and thencefrom a large fraction of high school graduates could make their decisions about whether or not to attend college without any need for ways to avoid the draft.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
A priori, one wouldn't expect those things to have such a dramatic and sudden effect. If you start from the mysterious graphs of many different financial metrics all going berserk at virtually the same instant - like someone snapping their fingers - you start to ask yourself "what seismic shift happened in the financial world at this point? What fundamental change was made here?" And if you ask this question in good…
What triggered this investigation? I agree that it does look like a phase-change. But did you throw out any graphs that didn't have a phase-change appearance? I'm genuinely curious. Seems like there are different arguments below-the-surface in this thread.
For me, what triggered it was noticing several startling graphs that all seemed to show a) something sudden, b) at the same time. I started collecting such graphs. It appears the author of this website has done the same. Note that all the "commentary" is embedded in the images - there's no indication that the webmaster has any agenda beyond mine (although the various graph publishers might).
I don't really understand your question about throwing out graphs that don't show a phase-change. There are infinite unrelated graphs. "But, your honor, consider all these photos of my client not murdering the deceased!"
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#36Could also have been this: http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1951-2000/The... Congressional votes became "transparent" in 1970. Such that a lobbyist buying a vote could check and make sure they got the vote they bought.
Very interesting! I had never heard of that. That definitely satisfies the twin criteria of sudden change and obvious link to magnifying inequality. It also suggests an explanation for why the incarceration rate began to skyrocket at the same time (wanting to be seen to be "tough on crime").
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#37Nixon also reopened relations with China in 1972. I'm having a hard time finding trade information from the 1970s (a quick search turned up: https://apjjf.org/2013/11/24/Dong-Wang/3958/article.html ). You could argue that arbitraging cheap labor overseas has been happening for 40+ years. On the other hand, you could also argue that this has helped make the US richer than otherwise would have been the case.
That definitely seems like something that would conceivably exacerbate the inequality effects, in the USA at least. But it feels to me to be too gradual a shift to explain the elbows in some of those curves - it's not as if Nixon reopened relations with China, and then companies instantly started outsourcing. Is it?
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#38Article points out one thing (moving away from the gold standard) that happened in 1971, but ignores all other cultural and social changes. If you believe the economy takes time to change, then you might as well blame the voting rights act in 1965, or Loving vs Virginia in '67, or the proliferation of terminals in mainframe computers in the early 70s. Very incomplete analysis, and lots of graphs with questionable pre…
> but ignores all other cultural and social changes Also, plays with the x-axis as convenient. And selective sourcing. Talking about income inequality? Cut it off around WWI. Chart showing banking crises? No source showing how they're counting crises. (Surprising lack of them in the 19th century, given multiple empires collapsed in that period.) Savings rate? Post-GI bill only. To say nothing of the liberal mis-use o…
Note that this is just a disorganized collection of graphs made by third parties, not an article or indeed an attempt to make any sort of a point beyond "hey check this out". There's no commentary of any kind, beyond that which the original graph authors put in themselves.
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#39Article points out one thing (moving away from the gold standard) that happened in 1971, but ignores all other cultural and social changes. If you believe the economy takes time to change, then you might as well blame the voting rights act in 1965, or Loving vs Virginia in '67, or the proliferation of terminals in mainframe computers in the early 70s. Very incomplete analysis, and lots of graphs with questionable pre…
The one graph missing from this is the workplace participation rate for women which increased rapidly from an average of 47% to 65% between 1972 and 1984 for OECD countries. A large number of households would have gone from having a single breadwinner to two as more women entered the workforce. The expansion of the pool for workers would have had a supply-side impact on wages. Initially many households would have see…
There doesn't seem to be any inflection point in that graph, so I'm not sure why you consider it relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force_in_the_United_Stat...
Re: WTF Happened in 1971?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
A priori, one wouldn't expect those things to have such a dramatic and sudden effect. If you start from the mysterious graphs of many different financial metrics all going berserk at virtually the same instant - like someone snapping their fingers - you start to ask yourself "what seismic shift happened in the financial world at this point? What fundamental change was made here?" And if you ask this question in good…
Removing the gold standard caused more people to get divorced?
Economic issues leading to money issues, yes - maybe. The leading cause of relationship stress is money. The two most frequently cited causes of relationship stress and divorce are money and sex.