As Kevin Mattson wrote, in “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?”: 1979. A good year to pronounce the American century dead….Just as in Vietnam, America felt defeated by a third world country. Except here the damage was harsher for those at home….The age of limitless, low-price gas—what better symbol of American power than that?—had ended. As gas supplies dwindled, prices rose, and so would the general inflation rate up, up, up into double digits. The prosperity of the 1960s—when economic abundance raised tides and floated most boats—had collapsed…Americans looked like citizens
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