Economic Outlook: The High Cost of Consumer Goods

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The U.S. economy and the high cost of consumer goods.

MOTHER’s analysis of the U.S. economy as of December 1977 includes information on the high cost of consumer goods.

This column first appeared back in MOTHER NO. 34 (July-August 1975). And the feature was started because a lot of little people (you and me, for instance) had been and were still being hurt.

Hurt by addled politicians and Keynesian economists who placidly told us that all was well . . . while we squandered our national wealth on a futile war . . . while we watched the high cost of consumer goods nearly double and the value of our dollars shrink almost by half . . . while we plunged into the biggest financial depression since the 30’s . . . while taxes were piled on us until our knees buckled . . . while the gold backing was officially removed from the last of the world’s major currencies, leaving the value of everyone’s money resting only on the slim foundation of political expediency . . . while the planet’s supplies of fuel and food and other raw materials were turned completely up-side down . . . while the stock market plunged, climbed, and then plunged again . . . while . . . but then, of course, you know what we’ve all been through.

Nor were the economic storms we passed through during the past 10 years the last ones we’re likely to see before we sail into clear weather once again. Far from it.

Western Europe’s economic recovery has stalled. As has Japan’s. As has Canada’s. As ours will shortly (according to most leading indicators, the very few rational and honest economists among us, plain ole common sense, and the most rudimentary and provable facts about the life spans of business cycles).

  • Published on Nov 1, 1977
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