The Picard Maneuver"Bar car" on the NYC subway, 1962
It was a temporary stunt as part of a city-wide cleanup. The goal was to give a “first class experience” to commuters.
username_1It looks like something has broken in the USA in the '70s. It only went downward from there…
Ever since I learned of this, I think of it frequently:
WTF Happened In 1971?
https://inflationdata.com/articles/2022/08/10/u-s-cumulative-inflation-since-1913/ "I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop." - F.A. Hayek…
so wtf happened in 1971 then?
Well, first of all, absolutely nobody was kung-fu fighting. It was virtually unheard of.
Who were going to be as fast as lightning then?
JoeBigelowChuck Yeager
tetris11
Akasazh
arctanthropeend of the gold standard
My guess is the end of the gold standard as its being referenced quite a few times across the webpage and it’s at the inflexion point of lots of these graphs.
But I didn’t check if it was a major cause or just correlation.
Yeah, what happened in 1971 is the end of the gold standard. But what happened in the late 60s, and early 70s was a major increase in the workforce as boomers began entering it, and increasingly women were working careers instead of staying home to raise the children. Meanwhile Japanese and European manufacturing were finally recovering from the war, so the American prosperity from being the only major manufacturing power aside from the much smaller countries in the Americas and Oceania was ending. Later in the 70s the MBAs would begin taking power economically, and the new deal reforms began being whittled down in the name of deregulation, especially in the 80s.
I’m old enough and have been on the internet long enough to be able to spot gold nuts…
MintyFreshYa, I’m always called a simpleton for saying ditching the gold standard was a mistake. But somehow a system where banker bros can just print money for each other is better?
Why should that dollar I have in my bank account be worth less year after year? Why should the 1% have access to a system of near limitless loans, allowing them to buy up and monopolize every aspect of life, from food, to housing, to healthcare?
Shits fucked if you ask me.
The funny thing about this generalization is that this was a stunt because the city needed to be cleaned up so badly.
It was a temporary stunt as part of a city-wide cleanup. The goal was to give a “first class experience” to commuters.
But I think the problem ultimately at the start of the 1970s was Richard Nixon. Awful president who put us on the path we’re on.
Fr, even with the nostalgia goggles on when I look at some of the media from the time as well as the news stories, and there’s a pervasive theme of filthy cities and urban decay, as well as nationwide homicide and serial killer sprees, not to mention race wars. The 70s looked like a horrible time for the country.
If anything, it’s almost a little inspiring that the country managed to climb back up so spectacularly for its 80s honeymoon period where everything was almost picturesque (at least through nostalgia lenses) for the next 2+ decades. It makes me think that as shitty as the world is now, maybe all this bullshit will someday get paved over for another cultural renaissance.
Hell, we wouldn’t even have boomers if not for WW2.