CDZ When?

[yiostheoy]

Since you confine it to twenty year increments, probably the mid 70s. Personally I'd say more like 1966.

Ah! The Carter years! Inflation, gas lines, energy crisis and The BeeGees.

You weren't alive then, were you? I was matriculating at The Ohio State University during the mid 70s and I can tell you that that era wasn't the benchmark for American greatness.

My guess The Donald thinks that the late 1940s, after WWII and the birth of the Cold War was America's greatest time. You know, while Harry Truman (d) MO. was president.

For my money, the early 1960s right up until 1968, a year that held too much history, was the greatest America I have lived through.

Carter was a dunce completely inept at macro economics.

While Reagan was asleep at the switch, his handlers managed a deficit deal with Tip O'Neill that gave us both guns and butter and thus stimulated the economy in spades.

 

[Nosmo King]

Since you confine it to twenty year increments, probably the mid 70s. Personally I'd say more like 1966.

Ah! The Carter years! Inflation, gas lines, energy crisis and The BeeGees.

You weren't alive then, were you? I was matriculating at The Ohio State University during the mid 70s and I can tell you that that era wasn't the benchmark for American greatness.

My guess The Donald thinks that the late 1940s, after WWII and the birth of the Cold War was America's greatest time. You know, while Harry Truman (d) MO. was president.

For my money, the early 1960s right up until 1968, a year that held too much history, was the greatest America I have lived through.

Carter was a dunce completely inept at macro economics.

While Reagan was asleep at the switch, his handlers managed a deficit deal with Tip O'Neill that gave us both guns and butter and thus stimulated the economy in spades.

Well, we know that Iran got the guns and Nicaragua got the butter. We got deficit spending in spades.

 

[Picaro]

Since you confine it to twenty year increments, probably the mid 70s. Personally I'd say more like 1966.

Ah! The Carter years! Inflation, gas lines, energy crisis and The BeeGees.

You weren't alive then, were you? I was matriculating at The Ohio State University during the mid 70s and I can tell you that that era wasn't the benchmark for American greatness.

My guess The Donald thinks that the late 1940s, after WWII and the birth of the Cold War was America's greatest time. You know, while Harry Truman (d) MO. was president.

For my money, the early 1960s right up until 1968, a year that held too much history, was the greatest America I have lived through.

It started getting 'worse' for me around 1972 1973, but then 1979 to 1985 were gangbuster years for me, once I figured out how the scams were working, and gold was cheap, and the crash in 1987 put me way over the top, with houses going for nothing while rents stayed stable. Never had a real job since, that I had to depend on for a living. Betting on Bush to win and knowing a couple of companies who would do well instantly and make some quick cash helped a lot, too, as did shedding them just as fast a year later.

Of course, the real economy went down the tubes as Reagan basically handed over the entire economy to Wall Street racketeers, so it sucked for those who still believed hard work and honesty mattered any more. They were suckers, and still are, unfortunately. Krugman is one of the few who has been calling most of right since the mid-1990's; the ideologues have taken over the Fed and Congress, so it's not likely to get better. A sad end to a great country. RIP.

 

[Picaro]

Since you confine it to twenty year increments, probably the mid 70s. Personally I'd say more like 1966.

Ah! The Carter years! Inflation, gas lines, energy crisis and The BeeGees.

You weren't alive then, were you? I was matriculating at The Ohio State University during the mid 70s and I can tell you that that era wasn't the benchmark for American greatness.

My guess The Donald thinks that the late 1940s, after WWII and the birth of the Cold War was America's greatest time. You know, while Harry Truman (d) MO. was president.

For my money, the early 1960s right up until 1968, a year that held too much history, was the greatest America I have lived through.

Carter was a dunce completely inept at macro economics.

lol ..all Reagan did was copy Carter's policies for the most part, until his one year of 'Reaganomics' caused a disaster and Volker took over and told him to keep his stupid nonsense out of the economy.

 

[saveliberty]

Since you confine it to twenty year increments, probably the mid 70s. Personally I'd say more like 1966.

Ah! The Carter years! Inflation, gas lines, energy crisis and The BeeGees.

You weren't alive then, were you? I was matriculating at The Ohio State University during the mid 70s and I can tell you that that era wasn't the benchmark for American greatness.

My guess The Donald thinks that the late 1940s, after WWII and the birth of the Cold War was America's greatest time. You know, while Harry Truman (d) MO. was president.

For my money, the early 1960s right up until 1968, a year that held too much history, was the greatest America I have lived through.

My bare butt showed up in 61.

 

[saveliberty]

Watergate, Vietnam, Inflation, Gas Crisis, Cold War, it was one thing after another. Slowly but surely the federal government was given the job of fixing us. Now we are fixed, in every sense of the word except completely repaired.

 

[gipper]

Prior to 1913.

Until the Roaring '20's there was nothing even vaguely resembling "prosperity".

During the 1920's is was financed by rampant speculation on Wall Street.

During the 1940's and 1950's it was stimulated by war production.

During the 1980's it was stimulated by Reagans deficit spending on Military/Industrial.

During the 1990's it was stimulated by dot-com speculation by vulture capitalists.

After Y2K and for the next 8 years it was stimulated by the Clintonesque housing bubble fanned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Right now we are in uncharted territory fanned only by replacement economics for long term durables (machinery, equipment, cars, trucks, infrastructure, and home improvements).

The USA had the world's highest per capita income from roughly 1900 to today. Only the UK had higher per capita income from 1850-1900 than the USA. There was considerable prosperity along with a lot of freedom in the USA then...thanks to a weak and very small central government.

GDP Growth Over the Last Centuries - Our World In Data

 

[Nosmo King]

Watergate, Vietnam, Inflation, Gas Crisis, Cold War, it was one thing after another. Slowly but surely the federal government was given the job of fixing us. Now we are fixed, in every sense of the word except completely repaired.

In the early 1980s my part of the country, the Rust Belt, began to fold like a Chinese card table. Tax cuts to big industry combined with unfair trade deals sounded the death knell to the steel industry. Mills close, the equipment was crated up and sent to Asia. Friends and family lost jobs, the ancillary businesses in mill towns, barber shops, cafes, hardware stores, bake shops, clothing stores all closed as a result of all those steelworker's check go away.

I had to leave my hometown to seek work elsewhere. I was fortunate enough to move back home by 1988, but I was the exception not the rule.

For me, my family and our community, the 1980s were the worst of times.

 

[320 Years of History]

The history and social history lesson is surely gripping for some folks. Please get back on topic.

Would someone who favors Trump please credibly answer the question posed in the OP? Alternatively, conservatives might respond, "Trump hasn't said, and we have no idea of what time period he means." I already know the Dems have no credible idea of when he means.

So far, the closest thing I've seen is what appears to be a speculation that covers some 30 odd years or more.

 

[saveliberty]

Michigan here, we made the stuff that rusts. My reasoning for the change in the late 60s and early 70s is that is when people really turned from building up their personal futures and assets to looking at government to solve things. Local to state and state to federal. Decisions and freedom moved toward D.C. I am not blaming Republicans or Democrats. I blame both and citizens for handing over the reigns.

 

[320 Years of History]

Off Topic:

Tax cuts to big industry combined with unfair trade deals sounded the death knell to the steel industry.

Are you saying that tax cuts were ineffective at stimulating business growth/development?

I had to leave my hometown to seek work elsewhere.

That's the right, and "common sense," thing to do given that you were unable to find work that met your requirements in whatever locality you found yourself. More people should, as you did, "read the writing on the wall," stop pretending they can "get blood from a turnip," or whatever you want to call to call it. What you did was recognize and accept the fact that the laws of supply and demand, as applied to the labor you personally were able to supply, simply didn't favor you in the locale where you found yourself.

I understand the emotional attachment one may have to their hometown, but in the calculus of "I need to earn money and can't do so where I am. vs. I want to remain where I am.", it's a "no brainer" that one needs to sell one's labor elsewhere. One need not like those choices, but they are nonetheless the choices. If life gives one lemons, one makes lemonade. If life later gives one bananas, people with any sense don't gripe that they don't have lemons anymore. They either (1) go to where there are lemons, (2) plant their own lemon grove, or (3) make Bananas Foster, banana splits and banana cream pie, or all of them or something else that uses bananas.

The reality, one that folks don't like to face but one that is yet no less real, is that most folks didn't own the steel mill, lemon grove or banana plantation. Most folks found themselves in the locality where those things were put there by someone else and they just "went with the flow" and took a job working there. Most folks aren't who put the business there and they aren't the cause of the business' demise. They just worked there. That means their onus is quite simple: keep and eye out for the "writing on the wall" and when the script indicates it's time to sell their labor elsewhere, that's what they do.

That's apparently what you did, and you did right. You mentioned that you were the exception. Perhaps that' so, but I'll tell you what's "exceptional" about your circumstance:

• you read the writing on the wall
• you accepted the economic reality you faced
• you acted in accordance with very basic economic principles
• you didn't whine and pine about "what should have been" and "what you wish were"

Now you can call that exceptional if you want. I call it doing exactly what any economist would expect you to do. The root law of economics says that rational human beings will, when confronted with scarcity, choice and imperfect information, dispassionately evaluate the situation and opt to act in the manner that maximizes their economic gain in light of the circumstances at the time of their decision.

What you did is what any rational person would have done, and done with no regrets. As I wrote, you can call that exceptional if you want; however, and not to deny you anything, what you did should not be construed exceptional. What you did merely made sense, and I suspect it didn't take you much at all see the sense of it. If there was anything exceptional about what you did, it was in (willfully or serendipitously) trusting that the principles of economics do in fact work as economists say they do. That act of trusting that economic experts know their field well enough to get such a basic level prediction right is what it appears many, many folks just will not perform. I can't tell you what that is for in my ~40 years of adult living, I have yet to once find economists goofed at such a basic level.