Thinking about Reagan and the 80's.
Jun. 10th, 2004 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdThings I remember:
1) The evangelical hysteria over his 3 names each having 6 letters. 666! He was obviously the anti-Christ and going to sell us out to the UN and the New World Order. Not only that, he'd been inaugerated facing the pagan Egyptian obelisk of the Washington Monument! And the official address of his ranch was 666! Augh! Augh! The Rapture should be happening any second folks!
2) His appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor. First woman on the Supreme Court. Yes, Reagan brought the Pro-Life plank into the Republican platform. OTOH, he appointed the 2 judges that have consistantly voted to keep Roe v. Wade the law of the land.
3) Unemployment that hit everywhere. By fall of 1982, 11%. That's One in Nine out of work. The number included my stepfather, a mechanical engineer. Then again, the employment boom of 1984-88 reduced it to 5.3%. I was working by then and could almost always just walk in and get a job.
4) Bloom County. Bloom County took him to task endlessly.
5) Land of Confusion. The video.
6) While Reagan Slept by Art Buchwald. Voodoo Economics, MX missiles and oil, all under his watch. A heavy recession hash indeed. But it turned around.
7) The Raisa/Nancy feud.
8) Dennis Miller talking about "Dukakis-Bush, break out the no-doze! They say Bush is just Reagan without the charm. That's like saying the desert is just like the beach without the ocean."
9) Nuclear angst so pervasive it spawned "Land of Confusion," "the Day After," "99 Red Balloons" and "Anything goes (when everything's gone)"
10) Welfare queens and demonization of the poor. Rampant homelessness from deinstitutionalization. But then again, in that era I had Protestant Work Ethic damage and believed the poor deserved to be because they were lazy. I've since learned that work doesn't always make one not poor.
11) Interest rates that were so high in 1980 that my stepmother could not make a living as a real-estate broker. Nobody was buying houses. 24% interest, folks. By 1984, when my stepsister's husband got his contracting business going, they were down to 10. by 1986, they were around 5%, and they stayed there for quite a while. These days, I'm getting 1.3% interest on my savings. I remember when it was 7%.
12) A revival of the moribund Space program. Nothing of note between 1975's Apollo-Soyuz mission and the 1981 Columbia launch and re-entry. Aerosopace engineers were back at work in the 80's, and not flipping burgers. Those of us who'd grown up with stars in our eyes from the Apollo missions were gratified and enthralled, and many of us went into engineering.
In the end, I think no president can be wholly blamed or credited for the economy on his watch. They can do things to improve or worsen economies, but they can only ride the trends really. Even the Shrub took the helm of a sinking economy. Granted, he ran it deeper into the iceberg insteaad of bailing.
1) The evangelical hysteria over his 3 names each having 6 letters. 666! He was obviously the anti-Christ and going to sell us out to the UN and the New World Order. Not only that, he'd been inaugerated facing the pagan Egyptian obelisk of the Washington Monument! And the official address of his ranch was 666! Augh! Augh! The Rapture should be happening any second folks!
2) His appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor. First woman on the Supreme Court. Yes, Reagan brought the Pro-Life plank into the Republican platform. OTOH, he appointed the 2 judges that have consistantly voted to keep Roe v. Wade the law of the land.
3) Unemployment that hit everywhere. By fall of 1982, 11%. That's One in Nine out of work. The number included my stepfather, a mechanical engineer. Then again, the employment boom of 1984-88 reduced it to 5.3%. I was working by then and could almost always just walk in and get a job.
4) Bloom County. Bloom County took him to task endlessly.
5) Land of Confusion. The video.
6) While Reagan Slept by Art Buchwald. Voodoo Economics, MX missiles and oil, all under his watch. A heavy recession hash indeed. But it turned around.
7) The Raisa/Nancy feud.
8) Dennis Miller talking about "Dukakis-Bush, break out the no-doze! They say Bush is just Reagan without the charm. That's like saying the desert is just like the beach without the ocean."
9) Nuclear angst so pervasive it spawned "Land of Confusion," "the Day After," "99 Red Balloons" and "Anything goes (when everything's gone)"
10) Welfare queens and demonization of the poor. Rampant homelessness from deinstitutionalization. But then again, in that era I had Protestant Work Ethic damage and believed the poor deserved to be because they were lazy. I've since learned that work doesn't always make one not poor.
11) Interest rates that were so high in 1980 that my stepmother could not make a living as a real-estate broker. Nobody was buying houses. 24% interest, folks. By 1984, when my stepsister's husband got his contracting business going, they were down to 10. by 1986, they were around 5%, and they stayed there for quite a while. These days, I'm getting 1.3% interest on my savings. I remember when it was 7%.
12) A revival of the moribund Space program. Nothing of note between 1975's Apollo-Soyuz mission and the 1981 Columbia launch and re-entry. Aerosopace engineers were back at work in the 80's, and not flipping burgers. Those of us who'd grown up with stars in our eyes from the Apollo missions were gratified and enthralled, and many of us went into engineering.
In the end, I think no president can be wholly blamed or credited for the economy on his watch. They can do things to improve or worsen economies, but they can only ride the trends really. Even the Shrub took the helm of a sinking economy. Granted, he ran it deeper into the iceberg insteaad of bailing.
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Date: 2004-06-10 11:24 pm (UTC)