WI: Jimmy Carter DOESN’T fire half his cabinet July 17, 1979?

[GeographyDude]

New York Times, July 18, 1979
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/18/...s-by-cabinet-and-senior-staff-some-going.html

Some of this was long-standing differences such as with Joe Califano at HEW and Mike Blumenthal at Treasury. But apparently some of it was Carter trying to demonstrate change.

And this is what really hurt Carter.

It wasn’t the “Crisis of Confidence” Speech on Sunday night, July 15, 1979, which was initially pretty well received. It was that he fired half his cabinet two days later.

Please paint a picture in which Carter doesn’t make this clumsy move and the last part of his presidency is, say, moderately more successful.

 

[GeographyDude]

two months earlier . . .


Actually, the death toll ended up at 273.

http://newsroomhistory.com/the-gallery-2/gallery-aa-flight-191/

This tragedy happened Friday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend, May 25, 1979, moments after take-off from Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

The crash of American Airlines flight 191 (McDonnell Douglas DC-10) was one of the major tech failures of 1979.

 

[GeographyDude]

Quarterly GDP Growth for U.S.


https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA

Even with gas shortages and price hikes, and with several tech failures, the 2nd quarter in 1979 for the U.S. economy showed 2.7% growth as compared with the 2nd quarter in 1978.

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(people get the idea that the entire late 70s were ragged economically, and that just is not the case!)

 

[nbcman]

View attachment 473360
Quarterly GDP Growth for U.S.


https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA

Even with gas shortages and price hikes, and with several tech failures, the 2nd quarter in 1979 for the U.S. economy showed 2.7% growth as compared with the 2nd quarter in 1978.

--------------------------------------------------------

(people get the idea that the entire late 70s were ragged economically, and that just is not the case!)

I'm afraid you are mistaken in your underlined belief. The end of the 1970s were known for high inflation (7-13%), high interest rates (up to 20%), elevated unemployment (6-7%) and slowing to negative GDP growth which was the prelude to the recession that started in 1979. I am old enough to remember the late 1970s and it was not pretty especially in the Rust Belt.

 

[GeographyDude]

I'm afraid you are mistaken in your underlined belief. . .

This is not merely my belief. This is FRED—Federal Reserve Economic Data, provided by St. Louis branch.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA
(can hoover arrow and see particular quarters)​

Recession didn't start until the 2nd quarter 1980 which had –.8 growth,

and especially 3rd quarter 1980 which had –1.6 growth compared to total goods and services for the same quarter a year previously (and so, we were experiencing a contracting economy)

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . especially in the Rust Belt.

I'm all with you. The erosion of the former large number of good-paying manufacturing jobs is something I talk about all the time. For example:

The Reckoning, David Halberstam, 1986, Ch. 38 "Hard Times Come Home," page 607:

" . . . When just before Thanksgiving [1978], he was told that he was laid off, the twelfth in his department to go, he was delighted. He had carefully planned a six-week vacation in Florida, where his wife's parents lived. . . . Soon it would be over and he would be back at work—in about six weeks to two months, he figured. Three and a half years later, in March of 1982, he was called back to work. He returned a different man.

"Thus began the real education of Joel Goddard, . . . "

I graduated from high school in 1981 and had a hard time on the job front, especially after a Christmas job at a department store ran out around March '82. (embarrassingly, all this happened in Houston, Texas, where I feel I should have done better).

A good friend of mine graduated in early June '82. Largely because of job difficulties he joined the U.S. Navy in August and served honorable his entire six year hitch. But I think he would have liked to have had a greater variety of choices and joined more out of a sense of real choice.

 

[GeographyDude]

Pew Research says the U.S. middle class has shrank from 60% of American adults in the early 1970s to about 50% today.
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/

So, it's not catastrophic. This is a lot less decline than people often talk about. But more than enough to account for . . .

the rise of conservative anger since the early 1990s rightwing "talk" radio, and probably earlier, too,

and a huge genre of teen dystopian fantasy, such as Maze Runner, where you have to do very specific things to negotiate this crazy reality, and how it came about is unknown to you,

and probably other things as well if we look for it.​

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

I'm afraid you are mistaken in your underlined belief. The end of the 1970s were known for high inflation (7-13%), high interest rates (up to 20%), elevated unemployment (6-7%) and slowing to negative GDP growth which was the prelude to the recession that started in 1979. I am old enough to remember the late 1970s and it was not pretty especially in the Rust Belt.

Ditto. I sat that out in college, & then a return to active military service. Recovery from the 1970s was not really believed until the 1990s.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

This is not merely my belief. This is FRED—Federal Reserve Economic Data, provided by St. Louis branch.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA
(can hoover arrow and see particular quarters)​

Recession didn't start until the 2nd quarter 1980 which had –.8 growth,

and especially 3rd quarter 1980 which had –1.6 growth compared to total goods and services for the same quarter a year previously (and so, we were experiencing a contracting economy)

A nuance lost on us struggling along in the real world then.

 

[marathag]

Ditto. I sat that out in college, & then a return to active military service. Recovery from the 1970s was not really believed until the 1990s.

For me, they picked up after '81, with only the '87 Market glitch slowing things down, even withbthe Farm Crisid here in the Midwest. Things were good, till '91 and that dooming Poppy Bush re-election chances.

 

[GeographyDude]

A nuance lost on us struggling along in the real world then.

As an 18 and 19-year-old, I was also struggling in the real world.

 

[GeographyDude]

Jimmy Carter: The American Presidents Series

By Julian E. Zelizer, 2010

https://books.google.com/books?id=T...things to say about the resignations"&f=false

' . . . The media and pundits did not have many good things to say about the resignations, and they undermined any goodwill about the July 15 speech, . . . '

Apparently, Carter had asked for the resignations of 34 top officials [!], and he accepted five:

Treasury Secretary Mike Blumenthal,

Energy Secretary Jim Schlesinger,

HEW Secretary Joe Califano (Health, Education, and Welfare),

Attorney General Griffin Bell (who had been wanting to return to the private sector), and

Transportation Secretary Brock Adams (who from other sources had reportedly been using the office as a springboard for a potential Senate run, I say let him)​

----------------------------

And no, not well received by the American public.

 

[GeographyDude]

The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics
By Walter Mondale, with David Hage, 2010.

https://books.google.com/books?id=f...out on the trail again, traveling up"&f=false

' . . . The day after he delivered it [his speech], I was out on the trail again, traveling up the West Coast and through the Midwest, giving speeches on arms control and the energy legislation. When you're in front of an audience, you can feel the public mood, and I could tell that his speech had produced a dramatic, positive response. I think people were ready for a tough message and ready for leadership on a tough issue.

'Then, two days later, Carter announced the cabinet shake-up, and our momentum instantly came to a halt. . . '

Walter Mondale thinks it was a big blunder for Carter to fire half his cabinet.

(or, to ask for and accept resignations, which in this case pretty much amounted to the same thing)

 

[GeographyDude]

For me, they picked up after '81, with only the '87 Market glitch slowing things down, even withbthe Farm Crisid here in the Midwest. Things were good, till '91 and that dooming Poppy Bush re-election chances.

I’m glad you had a ten year run which was generally good.

To me, this shows that with a modern, resilient economy, most people DO NOT lose their job during a recession, because at the time 1982 was the worse downturn since the Great Depression.

 

[David T]

Saying that the economy wasn't that terrible as of July 1979 is, even if true, irrelevant. Not firing any Cabinet members would not prevent the Iran hostage crisis, nor the economic decline in the near future, which (I would argue) was already in the pipeline. (Actual declines in GDP and increases in unemployment are really lagging indicators. In any event, as early as the fourth quarter of 1979, GDP growth slowed to 1.3 percent https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA which means virtually no per capita growth.)

Anyway, on July 13-16, 1979--before the firings--12(!) percent of Americans were satisfied with the direction of the country, according to Gallup... https://news.gallup.com/poll/1669/general-mood-country.aspx Maybe things weren't that bad, but the American people sure didn't think they were very good... and as for Carter's own job approval, this chart shows how low it was by mid-1979:

So., basically the firings, though they generated some short-term (largely negative) publicity had very little effect. Carter was very unpopular and could not win re-election unless something drastic was done. Even if the "crisis of confidence" speech didn't hurt him, it was far from being enough to enable him to recover, and even if the firings on balance hurt him, it's not like he wasn't already very unpopular.

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . In any event, as early as the fourth quarter of 1979, GDP growth slowed to 1.3 percent https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RO1Q156NBEA which means virtually no per capita growth.) . . .

Point well taken. With a growing population, we need to look at the surplus of GDP growth over and above population growth.

In addition, I’ve heard that around (?) 1952 and ‘53 were peak years of the baby boom generation, and thus in 1979 many of these young people were moving into their late twenties and in a normal, healthy modern economy would have been moving upward in pay and responsibility. And a big disappointment if this wasn’t happening, or was a lot slower than expected.

The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (on a Shag Rug) in the Seventies, Thomas Hine, 2007, page 193:

" . . . Nevertheless, as they entered the workforce, these earliest boomers [1946 and ‘47], especially those who had graduated from college and avoided the war, were fortunate. They were like the first people in line at a buffet table. Good jobs were fairly plentiful, and barriers to getting them weren't overwhelming. . . "

 

[GeographyDude]

. . . and as for Carter's own job approval, . . .

What if I say, I don’t give a damn about the president’s popularity?

I’d rather the country go well, including us doing our share internationally in a constructive way.

And if the president is dithering and uncertain as if he’s a Hamlet, I’m not sure why Congress doesn’t take charge. In fact, post-Watergate in ‘74, I’m not sure why Congress didn’t start asserting themselves much more anyway.

 

[GeographyDude]

https://skepticalscience.com/The-correlation-between-CO2-and-temperature.html

Projected CO2 (based on current trends) might be the most important single number (this graph only shows recorded through 2008, but it’s an excellent middle-brow discussion).

That is, the environment is, and/or should be, our number one first concern.

But, quarterly GDP growth is a close second. And we’ve got to find smart ways to achieve both, and make corrections as we go.

 

[marathag]

What if I say, I don’t give a damn about the president’s popularity?

Said no Presidential Staff, ever.

 

[nbcman]

What if I say, I don’t give a damn about the president’s popularity?

I’d rather the country go well, including us doing our share internationally in a constructive way.

And if the president is dithering and uncertain as if he’s a Hamlet, I’m not sure why Congress doesn’t take charge. In fact, post-Watergate in ‘74, I’m not sure why Congress didn’t start asserting themselves much more anyway.

Said no Presidential Staff, ever.

Or any Congressperson. That’s why Carter didn’t get things done since he couldn’t work with Congress or the US public. President Carter was a poor president but rehabilitated himself in the years since.