Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aazaa | Hacker News Reader

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Plenty of events to choose from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971

Highlights:

- "A new stock market index called the Nasdaq Composite debuts."

- "Starbucks, a major coffeehouse and outlet in worldwide, is founded in the U.S. State of Washington."

- "The U.S. ends its trade embargo of China."

- "President Richard Nixon declares the U.S. War on Drugs."

- "Southwest Airlines, a low-cost carrier, begins its first flights between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio."

- "American President Richard Nixon announces his 1972 visit to China."

- "President Richard Nixon announces that the United States will no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. He also imposes a 90-day freeze on wages, prices and rents."

- "The United Nations General Assembly admits the People's Republic of China and expels the Republic of China (or Taiwan)."

- "Ray Tomlinson sends the first ARPANET e-mail between host computers.["

- "The People's Republic of China takes the Republic of China's seat on the United Nations Security Council (see China and the United Nations)."

- "The U.S. dollar is devalued for the second time in history."

These events can be grouped into categories:

- pro-deflationary (e.g., China rising, the first email message, Southwest)

- anti-working-class (War on Drugs)

- increasing financial speculation (NASDAQ)

- financial (end of Bretton Woods, US dollar devaluation)

- consumerism (Starbucks makes coffee cool and diverts billions from working-class savings)

I know that the site advocates the end of Bretton Woods as the main cause, but that event is just one in a spectrum of major arcs that had major emergences in the early 1970s after slow burns in the 50s and 60s.

I'd add that in 1970, the intermodal shipping container became an ISO standard. Containerization has been developing since 1956, and along with minicomputers, would have an impact on world trade and manufacturing for decades to come.

IMHO this could be larger than most people would think. This made it affordable to export labor overseas, starting the power imbalance between employers and employees.

I'll bet if you look this is the start of die off of Unions. Now there is an alternative to employees who start demanding living wages and benefits, you can build your factory in another country where labor has few rights. The only unions you would expect to survive are ones where the labor can't be outsourced. Service unions. Transportation. Mining in cases where the material is too expensive to ship like coal.

Yup. Labor is not as mobile for the employee.

Amazon is interesting too. They brought the global supply chain to the consumer. What consequences will that have?

The best example are Police Unions :)

Though Teachers Unions would a counter example.

It's interesting that the middle class started losing wealth and income stagnated in relation to the larger economy starting in 1971-1972, but most of the events from 1971 are lagging indicators. Eg, the CIA was actively keeping China from being able to obtain chips in the mid '70s. China was barely able to export anything until the late '80s - early '90s. The birth of the digital age is another good example, but tech didn't take over many jobs until the late '70s if not the mid '80s.

When analyzing wage stagnation in a finer detail: Going off the gold standard caused a rise in the stock market. Also, we have regulated food prices in the US, so the current metric we use to measure inflation isn't strongly correlated to a living wage. Meanwhile, people who are invested in the stock market and rental properties, aka the upper 10%, have seen a large boom in wealth. (Not just the upper 1% have had a rise in wealth.) Unless we have any other ideas that is being overlooked here, it does in fact look like going off the gold standard started this trend, and has only been amplified by trade and tech later on.

Could it be possible that unionized workers started shrinking in 1971? They're commonly cited by historians as a key element in the rise of working class wages, so it would be a good place to check to see if there is a correlation there.

>Also, we have regulated food prices in the US

Can you expand on this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...

subsidy =/= "regulated"

A subsidy is a kind of regulation.

Not specifically happening in 1971, but one could argue this is the start of the Information Age and subsequent "digital divide"

> "Starbucks, a major coffeehouse and outlet in worldwide, is founded in the U.S. State of Washington."

That isn't it. Starbucks didn't open its sixth store until 1984.

https://historylink.org/File/20292

Population then was also half of what it is today. (Imagine Thanatos snapping his fingers! Huh, I guess it wouldn't really be that bad.).

I was also conceived in 1971, so maybe it was my personal existence. Sorry to everyone affected. I'll be dead within the next 50 years most likely, so be patient.

It is clearly Ray Tomlinson's fault for sending emails. Because anybody else on the list would have an army of defenders to argue for and bring to stall any change to reverse their negative effect.

economic emancipation of China + cheap flights + email + new shops selling imported coffee

Globalisation perhaps?

you can say the same for probably any year of the past 50 years

that's it, it must be pesky starbucks !

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