Thoughts on life part 2

 The 70’s were an OK time to grow up as a kid. I say this because we did have some of the carefree child-rearing attitude left over from prior decades. Though I was not supposed to leave my block when I was young, I could stay out the entire day in the summertime, only returning home for lunch and supper until dark. We did have to start paying attention to stranger-danger and possible razor blades in the candy. If it wasn’t pre-packaged, Halloween candy was thrown away. There was always the exception of the little old lady with the apple tree in the backyard (was that from Mrs. Olsen? It’s ok then). I even remember the hospital near our house opening their X-ray room to inspect candy. This is not the sort of thing kids should have to worry about, but it started in the 70’s. 

The 70’ were also a time of mass layoffs in the pursuit of profits. Unions began their decline. The middle class started shifting from upper to lower in the 70’s. We did not really know the downhill trajectory started and would not for 20+ years. The lower and middle class just started suffering under this new-found corporate power. Then Ronald Reagan got elected and the economic situation for most of the working class went from downward trajectory to race to the bottom in a matter of 10 years. 

Reagan took a relatively balanced economy and did two actions that still reverberate to this day: Breaking the air traffic controllers strike and cutting the top tax rates in half. The first accelerated the decline of Unions. Unions, and to a minor extent Co-ops, give the workers for the company power in how productivity is divided in the company. This allows the workers to negotiate a better standard of living than they would otherwise receive. A company is formed, after all, with the top goal of making profit. There are companies that follow a more egalitarian or even noble vision, but profits do matter, even to those companies. CEO pay during this time exploded. Board of corporations, desperate to get the best CEO “talent”, would hand over contrast that made them wealthy, often at the expense of the company. Take the concept of stock options. For a CEO, this is probably the single best part of any contract. Since options are purchased at the lowest value then can be sold at the highest, the CEO has an easy pathways to make that happen. 

Thoughts on life part 1

 My purpose with this post is just to start documenting my thoughts on the issues surrounding this country. 

I am old enough to remember “Tricky Dick’s” famous wave as he left the White House for the last time. I am old enough to remember Walter Kronkite somberly delivering that days Vietnam war deaths on the 6 o’clock news. I’m on the old side of GenX. Born in 1967, I remember living though the turbulent 70’s, the rampant greed and commercialism of the 80’s, the promise and prosperity of the 90’s, terrorism 2000’s, and the crash-hope-crash cycle that followed. 

Growing up, I never experienced true hard times. My family was blessed in a way. Though my immediate family was a one-income family until my senior year of high school, we never felt the true pinch of poverty. My aunt never married and worked a well-paying job. She moved in with us and helped cover rent and some food costs. More than that, she was much like a fairy godmother. For example, around the Thanksgiving holiday, she would present me and my brother with the Sears catalog (the Amazon of its day) and we would circle what we desired for Christmas gifts. Though we didn’t get everything we circled, we got enough that we did not notice. 

I realize now that we were effectively a two-income family even without my mom working. Had my aunt not lived with us, I think my mom would have had to take a job to make ends meet. My mom in fact did want to work after I was born, but she always said my cries of “Momma” when she left kept her home. The 70’s would have been much leaner had my aunt not lived with us. That would probably have forced my mom to work and my life would have been much different. 

In the 70’s, women’s workforce participation started to really rise. Though this is due to many factors, I think the stealthiest of those is the need to have two incomes to create the same standard of living enjoyed by single incline families through the 60’s. 

Part 2 coming…

Groovin' on the elevator. Here are the boys posing for their first band picture.

Great huh?

First post

Holy cow! Showing my wife how to blog!