What was the USA like in the 70's?

there was a LOT of courderoy. and big pointy collars.

Wow! Thanks! That really moved this discussion forward.

WE DIDNT Have the weird weather/people/radiation.

No computers/remote controls/etc

People could plant and grow things and still knew how to move their asses. We still knew how to WALK. We weren't zombies like we are now. People weren't fat.

Yeah, all in all-- MUCH worse.

the worst I remember is long gas lines... everyone started car pooling. It was nothing like this now. NOT EVEN CLOSE>

Lots of sex girls never wore bras and would fuck right away. No money. Cheap goods today were expensive precious metals were super expensive like today.

Found this video. He goes on to explain what was happening at that time. Too bad they had to have music while he was talking. Never understood why people fucking do that.

There was a lot of bad porn.

the American Dream reached its zenith in 1960,
and it's been nothing but decay since then.

Things were pretty bad under Carter. Unions were out of control, long gas lines, changes to speed limits, 'energy-saving' initiatives from the feds, Panama Canal fiasco, Iran, Billy Beer...................

It is FAR worse right now. Don't get me wrong. The 70's were bleak, but I've never seen anything like what we're going through now.

YES!

Everything this poster said was exactly the way I remember it. Yes. These are much worse times though.

There was an oil embargo in 73-74. Lines to buy gas, but it was cheap. I remember gas wars around 1972 or so and you could buy gas for 0.25 gallon. My friend had a datsun so we would buy like 0.75 of gas and drive around for days. Of course minimum wage was $1.75 or so per hour.

Rented a 3 BR house on the beach with a few friends in off season for $175 a month.

Dont remember too much really bad about the late 70's early 80's except for Carter and the interest rates were at 21%.

There was the Iran hostage crisis under carter and later in 86 or so the Iran contra scandal.

I could not find a job when I graduated from college in 1984. Worked doing landscape and odd jobs for a while.

Haircuts weren't invented yet.

I remember when gas jumped from .40 cents a gallon to about $1.10 per. People freaked out.
But in those days, you could get a soda in the bottle for a quarter and a candy bar for a dime. A McD's burger was 35 cents and made out of real beef.

Chics had hair the clam. today they keep the razor blade
companies in business thats why you pay 15$ for three blades

There were no aids or herpes. Somehow u survived. Bums arrived in the 80s peoplecould wander the country. People went missing more often. More sex also more violence. Carrie was really quite trueexcept forall the dead bodies

Thanks. I was wondering how it felt compared to today. :)

Gas for cars was cheap- no problem--

but...interest rates were very high. I'll never forget paying 19% interest on a new car!

I was in my late teens, early twenties- remember it well.

Clothing was expensive. Food was cheap.

Now it seems to have switched- food expensive- imports from China make most clothing inexpensive.

Pay was not great- but there were jobs and an education made sense.

Now- pay going down, all expenses going up and good luck getting a job no matter what your education, and heaven help those paying off college loans for the education of today.

In the late 70's a good college cost 5-6 thousand a year. Now 40-50k

In the 70's most families were one income-

Today- even with two it is a struggle.

Our future- multi generational families in apartments riding bikes to work.....

at Mc Donalds.

people actually wrote and performed their songs.

You could get head in the street. free love,
wouldn't have to wank it.

Particularly hideous shades of Orange and Green are what I remember most. I was pretty young, but those disgusting shades of Orange and Green are what I associate with the 70's. Also, it didn't seem to matter if your clothes matched.

I was a kid then, but I remember that even in my middle middle class neighborhood, there were very few two-income families. Most could get by with only one salary, and even though people complained about inflation, I remember most of my friends went to summer camp, had new bikes, and their parents bought a new car every few years

When we look back at it, it looks like a golden age, but at the time most people were worried about the high price of gas (when it soared from .35c to $1.00/gallon and there was even/odd day rationing)

By the late 1970s, gold and silver had spiked, and there was talk about possible war with Russia.

Again, looking back on it, it is a joke compared to today's fears. In the 1970s, the US was still a major manufacturing nation, the US was a creditor (lender) nation, not a major debtor nation like today. Most americans only owed money on their homes, and perhaps a car. Credit cards weren't as common, and college costs were far more reasonable so college debt was alot less

There was no outsourcing, so a US job tended to pay a US living wage, even if it wasn't luxurious.

Most importantly, the US markets were the only real game in town. If you wanted to buy stocks, invest in a country, most of that went into the US, perhaps Japan and the UK. The USSR and China were communist and investor hostile, and investing in Brazil, India or Vietnam would have been a joke.

Yes, history repeats itself, but only in distant echos. I was there, and I can tell you...today is far worse and much more serious.

Soon they are about to announce a national sales tax, a VAT tax on all purchases, and the US dollar is about to lose it's "reserve" status - which means that oil and food is going to be priced in some other country's stronger currency. We are about to learn what it's like to live in a third world country...and I think that is going to be a major and historic event for the US population.

I hope this generation has the strength that my parents - the depression/WW II era - had...but somehow I don't think so :(

The 1980s was like paradise.


People bitched about the inner cities, but they always were and will be shit holes.


If you look at 1980s commercials, and some movies.


You notice the HUGE difference between then and now.


In the 1980s everything was postive, and Optomistic. How Happy everything seemed.


There was a sense that people could do anything.

If you asked someone in 1985 if the USA would have bases on the moon in 2011; people would of said sure of course.




Now compared to today.

Everything is bleak. Negative. Every other person is telling you how they think everyone will all be dead in a year from pick your crisis: planet X/ radiation/ chemical trails/ WW3.


People are all wired in to each other. But I just notice that makes everyone seem to care less about each other than more.


I have found all the texting and blogging to make people some how stupider.


People cant tell time, or find their way from point a to b with out their phone.

Technology seems to be making people dumber. And of course lazier.

If you had a friend or relative in the mid 1980s who hid in their house playing with electronics all day they'd be the 'crazy weirdo' , today that's everyone.


People dont give a shit about anything. And, will all tell you how nothing you do really matters.

The only thing people look up to now is a lot of money or fame, or both.

The American Dream is no longer, I work really hard and get a decent living.

The Dream today is i will create some scheme and get rich and famous over night. Idolize instant success = American Idol = no work/ just go from no one to fame and money over night. And, play up winning the lottery as some sort of accomplishment.

So that the con artist/ quick buck artist becomes the national hero.


No one really can tell you who Obama is or where he even came from, with 100% certainty.

But, who cares he went from nothing to President over night.

And, that's what everyone really wants now. No work, and just give me everything over night.


The nation is headed down a bad road.


Eventually we will realize we have to go back to a moral and up right society. But, not until it gets even more fucked up.

I was raised in the 70's. My parents were not poor or rich so we lived a pretty good life. Grew up in a small midwestern town. We never locked our doors at night and I pretty much played wherever I wanted to outside without worrying about pedophiles or shit like that. Yeah, we actually played outside until cable TV took a hold. No real video games to play with unless you went to an arcade. Not really sure if arcades came around until the 80's though. When Star Wars first came out, I was mesmerized.

Disco music sucked.

True, there was a huge sexual revolution after the "free love" of the late 1960s - combined with cures for all known veneral diseases - led to lots of 'wife swapping' "swinging' and all kinds of experimental behavior

Another thing most forget: there were only 3 major TV networks, and most of them shut down by 1 am in the morning. If you wanted to watch TV after 1am, you were out of luck. VCRs were only invented in the mid/late 1970s and most families didn't really own them until the 1980s. If you wanted to see a movie without commercials you HAD to go to the theater

Similarly, there were only a few major radio stations, and they tended to carry all kinds of music, from funk soul and motown to rock and folk. If your band got onto "Cousin Bruce" on WABC or onto the rock WNEW stations, you were guaranteed a huge audience across the country. Now it's easier to get "on the air" in some way, but that doesn't guarantee much of an audience, or much revenue

The monopoly of a few media outlets meant that "consensus" was alot easier to create. Most Americans had watched the same TV show, and had been exposed to the same ideas - which created a much stronger popular culture. Compared that to today, with hundreds of satellite radio stations, endless satellite radio stations, and a whole universe of choice on the internet, it is less common for most people to share the same experiences

CKLW

A++++

I remember my dad started to buy tiny foreign cars and they were repeatedly vandalized. People on the first wave of compact car ownership were mocked as unamerican, and foolish. We kids loved the tiny cars put huge flower decals all over them.