Things that make you go "Hmmmm…"

[rogue]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

I suspect that changes in the oil market, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis, drove much of that, but I don't have the knowledge of economics to support that suspicion.

[masser]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Here are two hypotheses (both could be partially to blame, but I lean toward #1):

1. The peak of union power in the US happened in the early 70s. It was all downhill from there. Consider the air traffic controllers with Reagan and subsequent efforts by states to implement right-to-work legislation.

2. Nixon shock; wage and price controls coupled with the end of the gold standard. We've had fiat currency ever since.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

computers: flattening in the wage curve seems too early for their effect. Minis were still expensive and rare into 1977. Maybe enough of a force to provide some factory automation though.
Micros were in kit form mostly until about 1977 (apple II), and things really got going about 1982.

US Oil production peak 1970; oil import accelerates;
Oil price shock; 1973/74 & 1979 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisis
There had been earlier price jumps too. See 1947 at https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/cru...-history-chart

Global business competition and seeking out the cheapest labor especially for manufacturing was common. I used to work with a fellow who ran a whole manufacturing plant, was sent from the US to Mexico to start up his company's new factory there, and when he finished that assignment and returned he was informed his employer no longer had a job for him. Early 1970s.
We hired him as a machinist some years later. Incredible work ethic; he even drove more than an hour to work on schedule the morning he had had a stroke.
In the late 1960s "Made in Japan" was something you might see on a cheap transistor radio and was often considered synomous with "cheap junk". How things have changed. I like my extremely efficient reliable Honda Insight a lot.
One of my trucker friends (who used to haul for Ashley Furniture) claimed he heard the owner of the company say he had 20,000 Chinese working for $2/day each. That was maybe 10 years ago.
It's rare now to find consumer items not labeled "made in China".
In 1980 I bought a circular saw. Made in Mexico, $30 retail. (CPI was 82)
In 2010 I bought a circular saw. Made in China, $30 retail. (CPI was 218)
https://www.rateinflation.com/consum...istorical-cpi/
In 1982 I bought an IBM PC made in Boca Raton FL. The chips in it were US company labeled but made all over the world.

Marketing, lawyers and finance took over the controls of business from engineering and manufacturing. Cost of compliance with regulations increased as the volume of regulations exploded.

Percentage of women in the workforce and expectations around that also changed markedly around then.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data...he-labor-force
This changed spending habits on food, and created much greater demand for child care with costs.

Devaluation and floating of the dollar: "In December 1971, the "Smithsonian Agreement" was reached. In this agreement, the dollar was devalued from $35 per troy ounce of gold to $38. Other countries' currencies appreciated. However, gold convertibility did not resume. In October 1973, the price was raised to $42.22. Once again, the devaluation was insufficient. Within two weeks of the second devaluation the dollar was left to float. The $42.22 par value was made official in September 1973, long after it had been abandoned in practice. In October 1976, the government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes. From this point, the international monetary system was made of pure fiat money." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_s...#Bretton_Woods

https://thevietnamwar.info/how-much-vietnam-war-cost/

Too many MBAs? https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronaldy...h=8d4ce42f8a2e

There was a lot going on then. Maybe it was the moon rocks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rock

[Xyzzy]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...uantum-spooks/

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...antum-century/

[kriesel]

Kelloggs usually makes them with sucrose. Someone whipped up a batch of 44 pounds with cocaine. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ed/4522013001/

[mart_r]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Arpanet?

[LaurV]

China happened. Deng Xiaoping. One country, two systems.
(yeah, I know Mao died in 76, but he was smoking like a tractor and didn't do much in the seventies, it was Deng and other progressive people there who effectively ruled the last 5-6 years of the Mao era).
Even better: Me happened. I was born just few years earlier, and it was the time when I was starting to manifest my evil spirit, hehehe (sorry retina )
(joking apart, yeah, I think it was the internet...)

[retina]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...uantum-spooks/

[Kebbaj]

Originally Posted by retina

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