Quick history of inflation in America. President Eisenhower started the US/Vietnam War, and JFK kept it going. Ike and Kennedy both wanted to keep it small, but LBJ made a major commitment of troops and air power to deliver a knockout punch. That turned into a quagmire where the US couldn’t pull out without looking like losers. President Johnson [LBJ] started printing money to pay for the War, rather than raise taxes. Nixon was elected as a peace candidate. Nixon’s Vietnam policy alone is worth several books, but we’ll just talk about the US dollar.
Nixon doubled down on Johnson’s bombing policy; the US factories were working 24/7 to make more weapons. Great, except the money was all paper. When the Arab Oil boycott hit the price of everything went through the roof. Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.
Then came Reagan. Big tax cuts for the rich were supposed to make everything golden again. In 1980, $1 million was considered a vast fortune; by 1992 it was what a really rich guy paid for a party.
Direct spending on Vietnam starts to ramp up in the mid-60s and draws down in the mid-70s. Inflation, however, goes through a major shock in the early 70s and another one in the early 80s. None of this seems to match any kind of cause and effect we would expect. Further, the real cost of Vietnam was born decades later, as those veterans draw on benefits such as the VA hospital system. (Which, BTW, is expected to start happening about now with the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; healthcare costs are a veteran issue.)
And then we have another big increase in military spending during the Reagan years, but no particular increase in inflation is seen. Not even if there’s some argument that it’d be delayed by a decade. Not like it had been in the 70s, anyway.
Oil costs are the main reason for these shocks. “Printing money” is a naive libertarian approach to inflation which largely serves people who use money to make money (i.e., billionaires) as opposed to people who use their labor to make money. I was just lamenting earlier today how leftists around here have started to absorb libertarian narratives on inflation, and it’s not a good thing.
Que the Iraq war part deux. Immediately followed by the Afghan invasion.
Paid for on credit card. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Don’t forget the giant expansion of the government under Bush² either, the TSA, DHS, Medicare expansion
The aughties fucked over the entire upcoming century. Obama swaging the wall street plutocrats after 2008 with, not just the bail outs, but with relaxing corporate control of rental property is looking really, REALLY short sighted about now
Trump repealing Obama’s DoddFrankLite is gonna come back and haunt us too, when wall street implodes in the inevitable 2008 repeat, because if you can trust a banker to do anything, it’s to suck as much blood out as possible and let the public pay for life support. It’s gonna happen again. Guaranteed.
Quick history of inflation in America. President Eisenhower started the US/Vietnam War, and JFK kept it going. Ike and Kennedy both wanted to keep it small, but LBJ made a major commitment of troops and air power to deliver a knockout punch. That turned into a quagmire where the US couldn’t pull out without looking like losers. President Johnson [LBJ] started printing money to pay for the War, rather than raise taxes. Nixon was elected as a peace candidate. Nixon’s Vietnam policy alone is worth several books, but we’ll just talk about the US dollar.
Nixon doubled down on Johnson’s bombing policy; the US factories were working 24/7 to make more weapons. Great, except the money was all paper. When the Arab Oil boycott hit the price of everything went through the roof. Suddenly stay at home moms were forced to get jobs to keep the family fed. In 1968 ‘middle class’ was one job to support a family, by 1980, two income families were becoming the norm.
Then came Reagan. Big tax cuts for the rich were supposed to make everything golden again. In 1980, $1 million was considered a vast fortune; by 1992 it was what a really rich guy paid for a party.
None of the timeline matches up with increases in inflation.
https://media.nationalpriorities.org/uploads/military_spending_since_1940_fy_2024_large.png
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Fig-1.jpg
Direct spending on Vietnam starts to ramp up in the mid-60s and draws down in the mid-70s. Inflation, however, goes through a major shock in the early 70s and another one in the early 80s. None of this seems to match any kind of cause and effect we would expect. Further, the real cost of Vietnam was born decades later, as those veterans draw on benefits such as the VA hospital system. (Which, BTW, is expected to start happening about now with the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq; healthcare costs are a veteran issue.)
And then we have another big increase in military spending during the Reagan years, but no particular increase in inflation is seen. Not even if there’s some argument that it’d be delayed by a decade. Not like it had been in the 70s, anyway.
Oil costs are the main reason for these shocks. “Printing money” is a naive libertarian approach to inflation which largely serves people who use money to make money (i.e., billionaires) as opposed to people who use their labor to make money. I was just lamenting earlier today how leftists around here have started to absorb libertarian narratives on inflation, and it’s not a good thing.
Dang.
The working class has been selling itself out ever since the end of world war 2.
Que the Iraq war part deux. Immediately followed by the Afghan invasion.
Paid for on credit card. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Don’t forget the giant expansion of the government under Bush² either, the TSA, DHS, Medicare expansion
The aughties fucked over the entire upcoming century. Obama swaging the wall street plutocrats after 2008 with, not just the bail outs, but with relaxing corporate control of rental property is looking really, REALLY short sighted about now
Trump repealing Obama’s DoddFrankLite is gonna come back and haunt us too, when wall street implodes in the inevitable 2008 repeat, because if you can trust a banker to do anything, it’s to suck as much blood out as possible and let the public pay for life support. It’s gonna happen again. Guaranteed.