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Why were the 70s such a tacky decade?
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Oh geez! lol lol
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Why!? The gas crisis? Watergate? The Vietnam War? Stagflation? High interest rates? Lousy clothes? Lousy home decorating? Ugly colors for kitchen appliances? Disco? Etc., etc. :doh:
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The 80s were terrible for interest rates if you were buying a house!
The 80s were also horrible to have your money in many savings and loans....
LizzieMaine
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The '80s were far less prosperous than people like to remember them being. A few people at the top made out like bandits, but most people did nothing of the kind. Around here, "'80s Prosperity" was something you heard about on the news and in movies, but in real life for us it was a time of closing factories, collapsing industries, and kids fighting for jobs against middle-aged people who'd spent their whole lives gutting fish or chickens but were now suddenly obsolete. But the Boys From Marketing did a swell job of selling the idea that everybody was happy. Repeat a big lie often enough and people will start to believe it -- and they won't fight back.
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ChiTownScion
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The early 80's were pretty dismal for me. Getting a full time job took a long time, but I suppose the one I found was to my liking as I stayed with it for 30 years.
By the mid 80's the real estate market really took off, and I was able to do fairly well with a side practice doing closings. It was a lot less cut throat back then: people generally were not signing contracts to buy or sell houses unless they really wanted to proceed, and the closing companies and lenders were fairly cooperative. For an hour or so per closing and about 5 hours of prep work, I could pick up $300-500, and it was usually a pretty pleasant experience. Not so much any more: more damn trouble than it's worth.
By the mid 80's the real estate market really took off, and I was able to do fairly well with a side practice doing closings. It was a lot less cut throat back then: people generally were not signing contracts to buy or sell houses unless they really wanted to proceed, and the closing companies and lenders were fairly cooperative. For an hour or so per closing and about 5 hours of prep work, I could pick up $300-500, and it was usually a pretty pleasant experience. Not so much any more: more damn trouble than it's worth.
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The 80s were terrible for interest rates if you were buying a house!
The 70s was a horror show.Dumbass Nixon took us off the gold standard and then put us on wage and price controls for 1,000 days.When that ended in 1971 inflation exploded!
You are looking at an average. Because there was a US record high prime rate of 20.5% on December 19, 1980, that definitely skews the data. By December 1984 the rate was half that and down to 7.5% in August of 1986. In 1979 the interest rates teetered from 12% to 16.75%. The interest rates were going progressively up in the 1970s not down as they were in the 1980s. Interest rates also cut two ways. Many of the retirees who were living on interest at the time were more than happy to have a higher rate. It stunk for borrowers though.
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It was good to have your savings in the right one though--making 13% interest.
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I never had a problem then either. It was far better than it is now. A person could make some real money and sock it away for retirement---making 13% on it in a bank.
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Unless your savings and loan defaulted. I knew people who it took 15 years to get their money back from the FDIC. And it was pretty much hell.
Also, while it's nice to make 13% in interest, don't think that matched the inflation that happened in the 80s to most people.
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Aside from 1980-1982 inflation in the 1980s was never above 5%. How I got 13% was in 1982 a San Francisco Federal Savings as offering the rate for up to 5 years. I took it---I am no fool.
I remember how it stunk after that though---you could barely get 5% if you were lucky in 1986. :doh:
LizzieMaine
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Before you could put it in the bank, you had to earn it. That's where it was brutal, at least in what was left of the industrial Northeast.
I tried going to California in 1983, figuring I'd get a better deal. Even the hippies had more money than I did, but I wasn't into panhandling. Came home broke six months later, and spent the rest of the eighties trying to find a job at a place that wasn't going to go broke and shut down as soon as I'd gotten established there. I worked as a sign painter, as a line worker in a t-shirt factory, as a press worker in a printing plant, all the while trying to find a radio station that wasn't at death's door. I went thru three of those -- one owned by a pathological liar, one owned by a convicted felon, and one owned by an Indian tribe -- before I ended up working for a station run by the state chairman of a Major Political Party, whose personal platform was "all for me and the hell with you." He, and his cocaine dealer, were definitely enjoying the eighties, but they left a wicked sour taste in my mouth. I was very glad to see the back of them.
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There was plenty of opportunity out here back then. The high tech sector was just starting to get going and the economy was climbing of the mess created in the 1970s. You had to choose your area though. Being close to Silicon Valley helped.
LizzieMaine
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I was in Santa Barbara, looking for a shot in broadcasting. I ended up working in a meat market for a couple of Czechoslovakian guys who had run from the tanks and come to the US to sell sausage. I will say that it was very good sausage. I also wrote fortune cookies for a while, but I found out there's not a lot of money in that.
I got off the bus in LA, and nearly choked to death from the smell. I had to keep going north until I could breathe.
I got off the bus in LA, and nearly choked to death from the smell. I had to keep going north until I could breathe.
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lol lol lol
Aside from 1980-1982 inflation in the 1980s was never above 5%. How I got 13% was in 1982 a San Francisco Federal Savings as offering the rate for up to 5 years. I took it---I am no fool.
Is that chart correct? The lowest unemployment was in 1987, at just under 8%! And people are whining about 6%.
