The Roaring '80s

by George Jerome Waldo Goodman and George Goodman

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671447882
• ISBN13: 9780671447885
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Summit Books
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A paper nation

As J. Stiglitz dissected in his book the `Roaring Nineties', Adam Smith analyzes here with a lot of irony the `Roaring Eighties'. On the business front, one saw the breakthrough of electronics with the slogan `automate, emigrate, evaporate'. It was the start of the decline of US manufacturing (`we are not in business to make steel, but to make money.') As Peter Drucker explained, `we are now going to see in production what we have already seen in farming. Agriculture once used ninety percent of the labour force, and now only four percent. I think manufacturing will go down to the same level. We can automate four-fifths of what remains of America's industry.' On the employment front, one saw the growing gap `between working America and paper America. Brainpower and talent are flocking to the manipulation of pieces of paper, and not to the hard work of manufacturing products that can compete on the world market.' On the financial (debt) front, the US as a nation became `very good at piling up debt, both public and private.' On the economic front, it was the time of the supply-siders. For Robert Reich just `ideological neurotics, who can't see the world as it is, that there was never a free market in this country. Government intervention sets the rules of the game through procurement policies, tax credits, depreciation allowances, loans, loan guaranties, and a thousand different schemes." On the psychological front, `the love of money as a possession - as distinguished from love of money as a means of the enjoyments and realities of life - will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over to the specialists in mental disease.' On the political front, `President Carter sent Brezhnev a firm note when Soviet forces mobilized on the Polish border in 1980. The American action helped check the Soviet momentum'. Nine years later the Berlin Wall fell nearly instantaneously. All in all, the US turned dangerously into a `paper economy' with `paper profits' (turning money around through speculation, mergers and acquisitions). This book depicts marvelously the upcoming economic and financial characteristics which would explode as internet and financial bubbles in the decades to come. A must read for all economists and US historians.

Major problems of the 1980s.

I was particularly interested in this book because this is when I graduated from my university and got my first job. Many people were going into the securities industries and making a killing in terms of salary. I stayed in industry because I liked the thought of making something, not pushing paper. Smith does a credible job detailing why this decade should not be considered the best in American history. During this decade, Americans became addicted to debt both personally and by company policy. Buyouts and LBOs were rampant in American society. Schools emphasized the MBA. The Pacific Rim countries-notably Japan exported more to the USA than others. It was a difficult time in U.S. History because we became more dependent on the rest of the world. We became the world's largest debtors.Smith goes into great detail of why Ameicans must come to term with who they are. Americans need to become more competitive with the rest of the world. If we do not, others will eat this country's lunch. Smith details all these warning and why it is important to heed them. Smith is giving friendly advice to a nation that is coming to grips over who has money. Americans need to change their belief in short run gains at the expense of long run profits. Only by focusing on the customers can we beome better manufactures.This books jumps from one topic to other, and therefore few people get the whole story.