The two income family came as a direct result of Nixon’s Vietnam spending.
Kennedy’s Vietnam policy was containment; we supplied ‘military advisors’ and propped up the South to appease the French. We were focused on the soviets and Vietnam was a sideshow.
LBJ wanted a massive knock out punch to wipe the Viet Cong out fast. Instead he got a quagmire. Johnson had to print money to pay for the war because he didn’t want to raise taxes. Nixon ran as a ‘peace candidate’ and then doubled down on Johnson’s spending. Remember, we were dropping something like a dozen Hiroshimas a day on jungle.
Inflation is getting bad, and then OPEC hits the US with the Oil Boycott. That devastates the US economy. All those cool loft buildings in places like New York’s TriBeCa and SoHo? Those were originally small factories. They emptied out because the owners couldn’t afford to runt them anymore.
The two income family came as a direct result of Nixon’s Vietnam spending.
That’s more complicated, since the Vietnamese War-Time economy was itself a driver of domestic growth. Stagflation by way of the OPEC crisis didn’t force people into second jobs so much as it put the breaks on 50s/60s era rapid industrial development and the modernization of the consumer economy. Women in the professional workforce was more a novelty of the 1970s and the Feminist wing of the labor movement. And that’s when a woman’s college degree began to matter more, women were able to take on personal debt legally, and birth control allowed women to have sex without getting pregnant (thus ending the Baby Boom era).
Had Nixon not dropped billions onto Vietnam, we’d have spent our petrodollars somewhere else. Military Keynesianism wasn’t the only kind.
All those cool loft buildings in places like New York’s TriBeCa and SoHo? Those were originally small factories. They emptied out because the owners couldn’t afford to runt them anymore.
They emptied out because businesses transitioned manufacturing outside of the major city centers. Mass transportation innovations allowed more and more labor to be moved across state lines. More of the urban economy became sales/marketing, banking, and bulk shipping. Its not like the jobs disappeared. It isn’t even as though these businesses failed. They just migrated closer to the agricultural source material (which - conveniently - was where employers could find cheaper labor).
They emptied out because businesses transitioned manufacturing outside of the major city centers.
The 'transitioned because the price of being in a city was too high. The businesses first moved to the American south where the Unions were weaker, and then overseas. I live in New York and you still hear stories about how fast it happened. “SoHo” was a name dreamed up by the artists who started moving into the empty factories. All the folks who’d been priced out of Greenwich Village started moving in.
Also, Vietnam didn’t ‘grow’ the economy. It was more like steroids. The old steel mills that should have been renovated years before were now running 24/7 to make enough bombs.
When the US mills couldn’t produce enough for the Germans and Japanese markets, those countries started building their own plants. These new plants used way less oil than the older American plants, so when the Oil Crisis hit German and Japanese cars became a much better bargain.
If Nixon hadn’t been pumping money into the steel industry it might have transitioned to lower cost plants on its own.
The two income family came as a direct result of Nixon’s Vietnam spending.
Kennedy’s Vietnam policy was containment; we supplied ‘military advisors’ and propped up the South to appease the French. We were focused on the soviets and Vietnam was a sideshow.
LBJ wanted a massive knock out punch to wipe the Viet Cong out fast. Instead he got a quagmire. Johnson had to print money to pay for the war because he didn’t want to raise taxes. Nixon ran as a ‘peace candidate’ and then doubled down on Johnson’s spending. Remember, we were dropping something like a dozen Hiroshimas a day on jungle.
Inflation is getting bad, and then OPEC hits the US with the Oil Boycott. That devastates the US economy. All those cool loft buildings in places like New York’s TriBeCa and SoHo? Those were originally small factories. They emptied out because the owners couldn’t afford to runt them anymore.
That’s more complicated, since the Vietnamese War-Time economy was itself a driver of domestic growth. Stagflation by way of the OPEC crisis didn’t force people into second jobs so much as it put the breaks on 50s/60s era rapid industrial development and the modernization of the consumer economy. Women in the professional workforce was more a novelty of the 1970s and the Feminist wing of the labor movement. And that’s when a woman’s college degree began to matter more, women were able to take on personal debt legally, and birth control allowed women to have sex without getting pregnant (thus ending the Baby Boom era).
Had Nixon not dropped billions onto Vietnam, we’d have spent our petrodollars somewhere else. Military Keynesianism wasn’t the only kind.
They emptied out because businesses transitioned manufacturing outside of the major city centers. Mass transportation innovations allowed more and more labor to be moved across state lines. More of the urban economy became sales/marketing, banking, and bulk shipping. Its not like the jobs disappeared. It isn’t even as though these businesses failed. They just migrated closer to the agricultural source material (which - conveniently - was where employers could find cheaper labor).
They emptied out because businesses transitioned manufacturing outside of the major city centers.
The 'transitioned because the price of being in a city was too high. The businesses first moved to the American south where the Unions were weaker, and then overseas. I live in New York and you still hear stories about how fast it happened. “SoHo” was a name dreamed up by the artists who started moving into the empty factories. All the folks who’d been priced out of Greenwich Village started moving in.
Also, Vietnam didn’t ‘grow’ the economy. It was more like steroids. The old steel mills that should have been renovated years before were now running 24/7 to make enough bombs.
When the US mills couldn’t produce enough for the Germans and Japanese markets, those countries started building their own plants. These new plants used way less oil than the older American plants, so when the Oil Crisis hit German and Japanese cars became a much better bargain.
If Nixon hadn’t been pumping money into the steel industry it might have transitioned to lower cost plants on its own.