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Thursday, January 01, 2009

The years that sucked more than 2008 

By TigerHawk at 1/01/2009 02:45:00 PM


Unless you were short the S&P 500 and oil since July, 2008 was probably not a great year for you. A lot went wrong, and we will bear the consequences for a generation, at least. It was, however, hardly the worst that Americans have faced, even within the oral tradition of the Baby Boomers. If you are over 45 and knew your grandparents well, your own "family memory" might go back as far as 1900. So, how does 2008 compare to the worst years since the beginning of the 20th century? Such comparisons are difficult to make, since one year's suckiness is different in kind from another year's, but we will not let that stop us from boldly looking for even crappier years. Therefore, behold my nominations for the years since 1900 that were worse, in the aggregate, than 2008, in reverse chronological order, with links to the Wikipedia pages and highlights, or rather low lights, of the year.


  • 1979 - Iranian revolution; oil price shock with gas lines; Mr. Ed dies; Jimmy Carter attacked by a rabbit; Susan B. Anthony dollar introduced; Chrysler asks for and receives a federal bailout the first time; Iranian hostage crisis begins; Pakistanis attack the American embassy in Islamabad, are repulsed; the U.S. dollar falls to record lows against the Deutschemark; the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; dollar inflation hit 10%, and "core" inflation was over 9%.


  • 1975 - Real GDP falls 4.7% [corrected] in the first quarter, inflation exceeds 14%, and the unemployment rate tops 9%; Bill Ayers' organization, the Weather Underground, bombs the State Department headquarters in Washington; South Vietnam collapses, and America withdraws in humiliation; Cambodia falls to the Khmer Rouge, and the slaughter begins; the Mayaguez incident, in which American hostages are rescued and some small quantum of American honor is restored at the cost of 38 servicemen; Jimmy Hoffa disappears; crazy women try to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford, twice; the United Nations declares Zionism a form of racism; New York City asks for and gets a financial bailout; a bomb goes off at LaGuardia; and Carlos the Jackal and others kidnap OPEC delegates.


  • 1974 - The Watergate crisis dominates the news, with Nixon resigning under threat of impeachment in August; Patty Hearst kidnapped; the Arab oil embargo, in force since late 1973, continues until March -- the price of oil rises from around $3.29 to $11.58 per barrel; dollar price inflation exceeds 10%; a "super outbreak" of tornados hits the United States on April 3, with 149 tornados killing 315 people and injuring 5000, and George W. Bush had nothing to do with it; the Symbionese Liberation Army, reinforced by Patty Hearst, terrorizes California; the Cleveland Indians sponsor a "ten cent beer" night that turns out to be "ill-advised"; the IRA bombs Parliament and the Tower of London; Ted Bundy is killing women right and left; Japanese "Red Army" terrorists attack France's embassy in the Netherlands, just one of numerous radical left terrorism attacks over the next several years; the United Nations grants the Palestinian Liberation Organization "observer status" at the General Assembly, just two years after Munich.


  • 1968 - the "Prague Spring" begins, only to be crushed by the subsequent Soviet invasion; the Tet offensive begins, including an attack on the American embassy in Saigon -- the United States achieves a decisive military victory but the American press declares it a defeat and Walter Cronkite throws in the towel; the Norks seize the USS Pueblo, which they hold to this day; My Lai; RFK assassinated; MLK assassinated; students riot across America, and take over Columbia; France narrowly avoids revolution after weeks of general strikes and protests; radical feminist Valerie Solanas shoots Andy Warhol; Saddam Hussein becomes Vice-Chairman of the Revolutionary Council in Iraq, after a coup; the Cincinnati Bengals are founded; the candidates for president are Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, and George Wallace (in case you did not like your choices in 2000, 2004, or 2008); and the Democratic National Convention is even harsher outside the convention hall.


  • 1950 - the Korean War starts, the United States intervenes under the auspices of the United Nations, and after the victory at Inchon General McArthur overplays his hand and provokes the intervention of China, a mistake that tragically prolongs the war at the cost of hundreds of thousands of American, Korean, and Chinese lives; Joseph McCarthy launches his campaign against alleged Communists in the State Department; Klaus Fuchs is convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets; Harry Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb to stay ahead of the Soviets; L. Ron Hubbard publishes Dianetics; and China invades Tibet.


  • 1949 - China falls to the Commies; the Berlin blockade, which has been ongoing since 1948, is broken by the airlift and lifted in May; George Orwell publishes 1984, anticipates web cams, and scares the hell out of everybody; South Africa establishes its policy of aparthied; the Soviet Union breaks the American nuclear monopoly, further scaring the hell out of everybody; World War II vet Howard Unruh goes nuts and shoots 13 people in Camden, proving that even the "Greatest Generation" had a few depraved loons; the Soviet Union plays hardball in the UN, vetoing membership for Italy, Finland, Portgual, and other real countries; the fake country of East Germany is established.


  • 1939 - 1945 - World War II. These were all brutal, harsh, years for a huge part of the world. More than 60,000,000 people died, and the result set up Communism as the new totalitarian threat to the West. The early years were terrible -- from 1939 through 1942, it was far from clear that the West would win, even with the involvement of the Soviet Union. The Axis powers rolled up one strategic victory after another, at least until the "turning point" battles of El Alamein, Midway, and Stalingrad during 1942. From 1943 to 1945 the tide had turned, but the human suffering had only just begun. From the Holocaust to the strategic bombing campaigns against the Axis to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is hard to match the human suffering of 1943 - 1945. Nothing else comes close.


  • 1938 - Edouard Daladier, an advocate of appeasement, is elected prime minister of France; Neville Chamberlain goes to Munich, returns declaring "peace for our time"; Germany invades Czechoslovakia; Kristallnacht, harbinger of the Holocaust -- Nazis burn Jewish businesses, arrest thousands of Jewish men, and kill 63 Jews; the U.S. economy endures the "second depression," and GDP drops more than 6% after four years of recovery.


  • 1933 - Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; in the United States, the Great Depression reaches its nadir, with GDP down more than 40% from its peak in 1929 and unemployment at more than 30% of the work force; the Oxford Union approves a resolution stating, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and country"; the Reichstag burns, and the Nazis use the event to revoke civil liberties; FDR declares an eight day "bank holiday" in March, and hundreds of banks do not reopen; the Germans open their first concentration camp at Dachau; Congress passes the "New Deal," and the permanent welfare state comes to America; the United States goes off the gold standard, and permanent inflation comes to America; Germany establishes the Gestapo; and Albert Einstein flees Germany for the United States, changing history and Princeton forever.


  • 1932 - The global economy simply blows; U.S. GDP falls 23% in a single year, the steepest one-year drop during the Great Depression, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level in July, just over 41 (down from a peak of 381 in September 1929), and the "bonus army" marches on Washington; FDR elected president; the Nazis rise in Germany, but nobody really understands what that means.


  • 1920 - The Reds defeat the Whites in the Russian Civil War; the United States Congress refuses to ratify the League of Nations, and the United States effectively turns its back on the Paris Peace Conference; the League of Women Voters is founded; the "Red Ruhr Army" rises in Germany, plunging that country into a low-grade civil war; Poland and the Soviet Union go to war; Mexico revolts; Ireland revolts; presaging the car bomb, a bomb in a horse wagon is set off in front of the offices of J.P. Morgan; Because there are so many mixed-race persons and because so many Americans with some black ancestry appear white, the US Census stops counting mixed-race peoples and the "one drop" rule becomes the national legal standard.


  • 1919 - the United States prohibits alcoholic beverages by constitutional amendment because hard-drinking politicians are terrified of temperate women voters; the Paris Peace Conference begins, laying the groundwork for a century of war in Europe and the Middle East; Mussolini forms the Fascist Party in Italy; Oregon levies the first gasoline tax in the United States (there's a shocker); the Bauhaus architectural movement is founded in Weimar, Germany; anarchists set off bombs around the United States; "Palmer Raids"; Democratic President Woodrow Wilson warns against "hyphenated-Americans" who "the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life"; women get the right to vote in the United States, and promptly start drinking; the Treaty of Versailles is signed, effectively ending World War I and essentially starting World War II; the American Communist Party is established; the World Series is corrupted by the "Black Sox" scandal; Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, and leaves the governing to his wife; Andy Rooney is born.


  • 1918 - World War I stretches into its fifth bloody year, finally ending on November 11; Woodrow Wilson delivers his "Fourteen Points" speech, which gives 80% of the world that they have some sort of right to self-determination -- this proves to be the cause of enormous suffering in the next 90 years and it confirms the fear of the rest of the world that the Americans are as naive as they are powerful; the Bolsheviks cut a deal with Imperial Germany, allowing the Jerries to concentrate on the Western front; the Spanish Flu pandemic begins with a case in Kansas in March -- in the ensuing 18 months the disease will kill between 50 and 100 million people, or between 2.5% and 5% of the planet's human population; the United States and other Western countries invade Russia in support of the Whites (the Reds will remember this); Woodrow Wilson sails to France for the Paris Peace Conference.


  • 1917 - World War I continues apace; Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe, foreshadowing the attitude of early 21st century American Democrats; the first "Red Scare" begins in the United States; Germany (maybe) offers to give the American southwest to Mexico if it attacks the United States; Tsar Nicholas abdicates; Bolsheviks take power in Russia; the United States declares war on Germany and enters World War I; the Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for a national home for Jews in Palestine; the British take Jerusalem from the Turks, which I am sure they regretting for most of the ensuing 30 years.


  • 1914 - 1916 - the first bloody years of World War I, a conflict that consumed 20 million European lives, demolished three great European empires, weakened a fourth, exhausted the West to the point that it would not confront Hitler until it was too late, and set the stage for catastrophic conflict in the Middle East during the Cold War and later. The United States kept out of it in the first three years, but the impact of British propaganda and German ham-handedness brought the Americans into the war in 1917. It all sucked.


    • That's my list of the years that clearly sucked more than 2008. Other plausible candidates include 2001 (September 11 and its aftermath), 1982 (recession, inflation, and crippling interest rates), 1980 (massive inflation), 1969 (a continuation of the hideousness of 1968), 1929-31 (the Crash of '29 and the start of the Depression) and 1907 (big financial panic). What years would you add to the list?

    MORE: Bloomberg says that 2008 was "by some measures" the worst year that anybody under the age of 70 has seen. Other than by certain financial market metrics, I don't think so. Even I, a corporate tool, do not think that money is everything.


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    25 Comments:

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 03:07:00 PM:

    1861 - The Year the War Between the States started in the US. The "fights" between the Republicans and Democrats in 2008 are nothing compared to the death toll of our civil war.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 04:35:00 PM:

    In my lifetime, 1968 remains the worst. I was just a kid at the time, but I could watch t.v. and the world from that perspective looked very scary indeed.

    (frickcom is my verification word. Has that been copyrighted yet?)  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 05:24:00 PM:

    Why do you list the establishment of the Bauhaus school of architecture as a negative?? The Bauhaus school was profoundly influential. Among its goals, in post-war Germany, was to design and produce affordable housing for the masses of (surviving) Germans -- a noble goal that would have helped to enfranchise a lot of "sour grapes" Germans, and perhaps reduced the appeal of the fascists.

    Even if you personally don't like the influence of the Bauhaus school on modern architecture, that's a matter of taste. For a lot of people, modern architecture (and I do *not* mean post-modern architecture) was a breath of fresh air, a clean break from the centuries of over-wrought and hideous European architecture.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 06:11:00 PM:

    Thanks, very interesting. I do note that you leave out some environmental disasters... how about the pollution in London in some of the early years, or the river in Ohio being so toxic, or the Russian pollution that occurred over the years the Commies were in power.  

    By Blogger Donna B., at Thu Jan 01, 06:47:00 PM:

    Very funny listing Andy Rooney's birth in 1919! The rest, not so funny.

    1968 was a horrible year. The earlier ones listed, I don't personally remember, though I've heard many sad tales of the 1930s.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 06:58:00 PM:

    1913 was the year that the federal government had handed over all banking powers to private central bankers and created the Federal Reserves in the dead of Christmas night.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 08:11:00 PM:

    I hadn't been aware of the takeover in Mecca in 1979. That was interesting.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Thu Jan 01, 10:57:00 PM:

    Truth is we don't know how bad, or good 2008 is yet. Like many of the other events listed, they may look small now, but in the decade snowball to huge problems. Might be looking back in twenty years at this list, listing "X was elected president of Y", "Z was published for the first time", or "J migrated to M". Maybe history gets more in focus the farther away you stand.  

    By Blogger Gary Rosen, at Fri Jan 02, 12:12:00 AM:

    I could say that 1998 sucked because of the Lewinsky scandal, but I won't.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 12:35:00 AM:

    Bauhaus brought us functional drab boxes, with minimal aesthetic niceties. It was the ethic of socialism expressed in architecture. It sucked.  

    By Blogger Micajah, at Fri Jan 02, 12:37:00 AM:

    Where did you find a decline of 9 percent in real GDP in the first quarter of 1975? I found this site, which indicates the total decline from the last quarter of 1973 through all of 1974 to the first quarter of 1975 was 6.8 percent.
    http://www.applet-magic.com/rec1974.htm  

    By Blogger Yishai, at Fri Jan 02, 12:43:00 AM:

    Wow. Great summaries Tigerhawk. This post sure helps to put the current 'miseries' in perspective.  

    By Blogger Tully, at Fri Jan 02, 01:09:00 AM:

    1855-1858, the Border War aka "Bleeding Kansas." Where pro- and anti-slavery forces got their unofficial start on the Civil War.

    It's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another....  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 01:27:00 AM:

    Your last comment about money not being everything is spot on, TH. Look how much living standards have improved. By and large, rural Nebraska didn't have telephones and electricity until after WWII. How can a bear market compare with having to head out to the outhouse at 2 a.m. on a 0 degree night? Life is still good.  

    By Blogger T J Sawyer, at Fri Jan 02, 01:41:00 AM:

    1962 - For "14 days in October" (you can google that!) I came home from school watching reports of U.S. troops being massed in the Southeast in preparation for war with Cuba. If I recall correctly, numerous gov't officials kissed their wives goodbye in the morning assuming they might never see them again after the mushroom cloud.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 01:48:00 AM:

    There were many bad years even after 1979 (perhaps not economically). 2001 was bad. 1982 was bad.

    Also, in 1979, China invaded Vietnam and 100,000 died. As this was at the same time as the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution, it appeared that the whole continent of Asia was about to fly apart.

    That was SERIOUS.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 02:45:00 AM:

    At one of my father's reunions, I spoke with one of his junior officers, who said with conviction that 1968 was America's worst year of his time. That was when he came home from Vietnam. The venom and hatred he encountered obviously still disturbed him greatly to this day.  

    By Blogger Strabo the Lesser, at Fri Jan 02, 05:26:00 AM:

    1976-9 sounds familiar. Fresh Democratic face succeeds hated Republican on a platform of hope and change. Change comes in the form of even worse inflation, unemployment, tax increases and oil shocks and the utter collapse of US foreign policy resulting in the failed holding of hundreds of hostages by the Islamic Republic of Iran and a failed military operation in the Middle East (at Desert One).  

    By Blogger TigerHawk, at Fri Jan 02, 08:03:00 AM:

    Micajah, you wrote:

    Where did you find a decline of 9 percent in real GDP in the first quarter of 1975? I found this site, which indicates the total decline from the last quarter of 1973 through all of 1974 to the first quarter of 1975 was 6.8 percent.

    Sorry I did not post a link. I'll see if I can dig it up again. Either I am wrong, or it is the difference between cumulative decline and year-over-year decline. I suspect that a single quarter of Y/Y decline of 9% would be necessary in a stretch that achieved 6.8% in aggregate decline, so they may not be inconsistent.  

    By Blogger Bob Hawkins, at Fri Jan 02, 12:51:00 PM:

    I've always said: when it comes to bad things, I'll take WWI against anything you can come up with.

    All you need to know about WWI: the ossuarium at Verdun contains human remains that couldn't be identified even as to nationality. The remains of an estimated 200,000 men are contained there. The Verdun front never moved significantly.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 01:12:00 PM:

    How many of you actually FELT worse in 2008? Honestly?

    If you were among those who lost work, or had your company downsized, then sure: It was a crappy year.

    But I'm willing to bet that for the large majority of us here, nothing about "life on the ground" actually changed. Most of the negativity we're feeling is simply fear and anxiety. And it's that very feeling of fear and anxiety, collectively, that WILL precipitate bad stuff in the economy.

    If we stop spending, stop investing, stop hiring -- all because we've worked ourselves up into a stressed-out lather about what might happen -- then we'll bring on the very thing we're worried about.

    It's sort of like being obsessively jealous with your faithful girlfriend. In reality everything is fine, but you're apt to create the very thing you fear -- her leaving -- simply by worrying about it so much and making life hell.

    Everybody should just keep their heads down and keep producing and consuming. That's all the economy is anyway, that series of exchanges. If everybody does that, we'll be fine.  

    By Blogger mockmook, at Fri Jan 02, 01:43:00 PM:

    Good comment TTODID.

    Tigerhawk, weren't those "alleged" State Department commies, actually commies?  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 03:14:00 PM:

    "But I'm willing to bet that for the large majority of us here, nothing about "life on the ground" actually changed. Most of the negativity we're feeling is simply fear and anxiety. And it's that very feeling of fear and anxiety, collectively, that WILL precipitate bad stuff in the economy."

    True, but there's other badnesses that haven't been resolved yet. Like the huge national debt, or those insane mortgages that were being handed out like candy for years, or the doubling or tripling or more of house prices in a few years in some areas.

    I've NEVER understood how we could rack up TRILLIONS of dollars of debt. I've never understood what sort of plastic doobie the bankers were smoking that would cause them to give huge nothing-down loans to people with bad credit. I cashed in and realized a 6-figure appreciation when my house value doubled in a few years, but I'm still uncomfortable with how easy it was. If I could do it almost accidentally, how much value was being sucked out of the economy by people who knew what they were doing?

    You're absolutely right, 2008 wasn't bad for me personally, or most of the people I know. But then, issues like the above bothered me enough that a few years ago I left the big city (Minneapolis) for a small town outstate, because I sensed a crash coming sooner or later and out here the economic highs aren't so high, but neither are the lows so low.

    Anyway, I'm free of all non-mortgage debt now, and am planning to have the house paid off ASAP, and start building a nest egg. Just doing my part to improve the national savings and debt figures. I'll just leave it to others right now to provide the sales figures.  

    By Blogger Bob Houk, at Fri Jan 02, 03:33:00 PM:

    Tigerhawk: Why the "(maybe)" in regard to the Zimmerman Telegram? Zimmerman himself said it was real.

    Good list -- I think many people are over-reacting so badly to the economy simply because they've never (as an adult) experienced a meaningful downturn (1991 and 2001 barely meet minimum standards for recessions).

    Putting aside the years I didn't experience or don't remember (I was born in 1947), the worst year was probably 1968 -- it really seemed (to a callow youth, at least) that the world was falling apart. Economically, the Seventies (into 1982) were a long horror show.  

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jan 02, 11:14:00 PM:

    heh, the Bengals were founded. Good addition to the many woes of 1968...  

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