Talk:Early 1980s recession

Globalize
I realize that this article desperately needs globalization, for this was a global event. But that is way beyond my knowledge and expertise. I did my best with the U.S. recession and its impact. - Tim1965 23:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The comment that the losses in the 1982 midterms was the most since the Watergate year isn't true -- Democrats lost more House seats in 1980 than Repubs lost in 1982. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_elections,_1980 unknown anon user


 * It now reads for the Democrats which is true but outdated since there has been at least one election since that the Dems gained more seats. More importantly though it is missing the fact that the Senate balance of power was net unchanged. Jon 13:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This recession was definately global, but this article is US/UK-centric. I know firsthand that Canada also entered this one with the U.S., and other European nations fell into this recession as well (closer to the mid-80s, at least in West Germany). On that same note, the S&L crisis is given undue weight here, as that was a U.S. phenomenon not a global occurrence. Anyone know of references that could be used to "globalize" this article?--FrankieG123 (talk) 18:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

"Unexpected"
The Brunner citation says the recession was unexpected. If there is an opposing view, it should be cited. Removing the reference to "unexpected" and replacing it with a claim about stagflation is not only inappropriate but NPOV. - Tim1965 16:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

United American Bank failure
The statement about the failure of Jake Butcher's United American Bank failure was removed. First of all, the event is not cited. Second, the date of the failure is not noted (although that's easily rectified). Third, the failure is included (by reference) in the paragraph where the article says that 49 banks failed. Fourth, and most importantly, by singling out the United American Bank failure, this makes it seem as if this was a major cause of the recession or contributed to its depth or length. That claim is (I would argue) untrue (for example, it goes unmentioned in the FDIC's narrative of banking failures in the 1980s, a history cited several times in the article); that claim is not cited or sourced (and should be); and that claim really deals with fraud rather than bank failures due to conditions caused by legal changes or the recession itself.

If the claim could be cited, that would solve everything. Otherwise, I think it appears as if the failure were simply "thrown in there" to provide a link to an article. It gives, in other words, undue weight to the UAB failure. - Tim1965 19:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Messed-up dates!
I found the following inaccurate sentences in "Causes of the recession":

"A brief recession occurred in 1980. Several key industries—including housing, steel manufacturing and automobile production—experienced a downturn from which they had not recovered by the start of the recession in 1982."

Yikes! The recession did not start in 1982.

So I changed the second sentence to the following:

"Several key industries—including housing, steel manufacturing and automobile production—experienced a downturn (from which they did not recover through the end of the recession, in 1983)."

If anyone has a better or more accurate way to word this information, please do. Softlavender 03:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Who caused the Recovery?
Is there some reason why the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (passed by Ronald Reagan) is not credited as helping end the recession? I included that information along with a link to reliable data and the gestapo around here deleted it. After the cuts, during the years of 1983-1986 the Economy grew at an annual rate of 4.8%. Prior to the tax cuts, the growth rate was 0.9%. Is there some reason no one wants to give Reagan credit? Why attribute the recovery to "deficit spending" (which has negative connotations) rather than tax cuts?
 * Because the tax cuts made the recession worse?? The recession began the month before the tax cut, while the the tax was being debated. A half million jobs were created before the tax cut, and 2.6 million jobs lost after. After taxes were hiked multiple times in late 1982 and 1983, job creation resumed.  The recession was declared ended two months after the 82 tax hike. At no time since 1980 was the rate of job creation as high as it was while Jimmy Carter was president.  When the increased government borrowing plus tight monetary policy were combined, business faced very high interest rates.  And consider the significantly lower than Reagan tax rates at the end of the 00s decade, and the worst decade of economic and job performance since 1932. Heritage isn't exactly balanced on economic issues, ignoring job losses after tax cts and job creation after tax hikes, like in the 90s when Heritage argued the tax hikes would result in recession and job losses. Check out this graph: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/reagan-taxes-jobs/ Mulp (talk) 04:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Did you just reference an opinion piece that even says itself the evidence is correlation not causation? Wow.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg1765.cfm

Millenium King (talk) 16:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"A combination of deficit spending and the lowering of interest rates slowly led to economic recovery." Interest rates were only lowered once inflation had been beaten. Paul Volcker was appointed by Carter, and was told to do whatever he needed to do to control inflation, which had run rampant throughout the 70's. Rates were lowered as inflation subsided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.67.61.2 (talk) 03:32, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Though "deficit spending" has negative connotations, that's exactly what was done. Defense spending increased significantly, and the budget was not balanced.  Tax cuts contributed to economic growth as well, for the same reasons.  Overall, we were running deficits and going into debt, and the economy grew.

--99.186.206.96 (talk) 08:49, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

"Bad time for financial institutions..."
The section on banks mistakenly states that the recession came at a particularly 'bad' time for banks, but in fact deregulation represents a positive environment for financial instituations.

It should be amended to note that the reason this period represented a 'bad time' was because of the unscrupulous and high-risk business practices of Corporate Financial and Executive officers in powerful postions during the 1980s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.229.179.17 (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Cause of S&L Crisis
I removed "triggered by the recession" from the beginning of the last paragraph in the section on the S&L crisis. The context was "The S&L crisis triggered by the recession lasted well beyond the end of the economic downturn." The previous eight paragraphs provide numerous causes for the crisis and only one sentence refers to the connection between the two events: "As the risk exposure of S&Ls expanded, the economy slid into the recession." Even that sentence doesn't indicate that the recession caused or "sparked" it - two meanings of the word "trigger."

What "triggered" my attention was that the interjection of the phrase struck me as self-conscious, as if a point was being made, especially since the sentence read well without it and the additional information wasn't needed. Additionally, no citation was provided, for this sentence or the next. The paragraph's only reference - U.S. General Accounting Office - applies to the last sentence, which addresses the GAO's cost estimate for resolving the S&L situation. Allreet (talk) 21:26, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

inflation in the UK
I've just changed the bit which said that inflation in the UK was at a postwar high of 27% when Margaret Thatcher took over in May 1979. It wasn't (it was about 10%), although it had reached that level in 1975. During the first year of the Conservative government inflation actually rose sharply to about 22%, but then steadily declined, so that it was back down to 11% by the start of 1982 and below 5% by 1983. The full figures are all available here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/tsdataset.asp?vlnk=7173 86.183.50.90 (talk) 13:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

A lot of opinion presented as fact
This text reads like political advocacy, not an encyclopedia article. Opinion presented as fact, specifically attributing the recession to Paul Volcker's policies, raises concerns about objectivity.

Tight money policies certainly contributed to the economic slow-down, however, it's not accurate to assign all responsibility to that factor. Cuts in counter-cyclical transfer payments, cuts in funding to the states, and other Reagan policies caused and deepened the recession.

Mikehersh (talk) 20:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Not being critical, but I would like to examine the source for these claims.--FrankieG123 (talk) 15:32, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I took out the section lambasting Reagan. It was absolutely clearly one-sided with its use of selective and out of context points. It was full of speculation and opinion; for example, concenring the reason for the 1982 elections. It simply doesn't belong in this article. Nor does the discussion on the corporate tax rate, which was not a hike as explained but a clarification of the tax code system. There was no percentage raise I believe. Nevertheless, it absolutely doesn't belong in this article. At least, if you are going to cite some examples of why you think Reagan was to blame (even though it started well before he came into office), citeone of the thousands of economists that are figuratively lined up to defend and support his fiscal & monetary policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.72.197.235 (talk) 11:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I removed two sentences in the Unemployment section related to the Unemployment rate methodology change in 1994 and the speculative comment ("...would most likely have...") that the unemployment rate for the Great Recession would have been higher with the pre-1994 unemployment methodology. Neither sentence was related to the 1980's recession nor was the referenced article for this which was published in 1995. As well the referenced article did not contain any comment of what the unemployment numbers for the Great Recession would be using the older methodology, and so the statement was speculation that the unemployment of the Great Recession would be higher than the 1980's recession.

Confusion
This article is about the early 1980s recession... but weren't there two recessions in the early 1980s? One starting winter 1980, and one starting summer 1981... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.43.29.146 (talk) 00:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In the US, Italy, and Canada there were two separate recessions, occurring in 1980 and again in 1981-82, but the article is not very clear in those details. However, in the rest of the developed world it was a single event from approximately 1980-1984. Earlier in some places and lasting even longer in others. Hence the generic term "early 1980s recession" which covers the global event as opposed to just the US. Confusion is understandable, this article is some what chaotic and has more space devoted to the S&L crisis than it does to the actual recession.--FrankieG123 (talk) 01:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_shapes#W-shaped_recession I hope this helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.137.214.33 (talk) 21:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Canada
I added a short paragraph regarding the recession in Canada. I got most of my information from the Bank of Canada website, where I found a good amount of information on the causes and effects of the recession. However, I was wondering if anyone could elaborate on the recovery. I was unable to find a substantial amount of reliable data on this topic. In addition, there are many good charts illustrating the comparision of Canadian and U.S. GDP during the early 1980s. However, as a new editor in the Wikipedia community I am not permitted to upload any files yet. I was wondering if anyone is interested in adding some graphs. .--User:Lb33104 (talk) March 2012 —Preceding undated comment added 00:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Dubious
The line "By April 1983, Britain – once known globally as the "workshop of the world" due to its strong manufacturing base – became a net importer of goods for the first time ever" looks incorrect to me; obviously the UK ran goods deficits during the world wars, and while a cursory look for official statstics doesn't turn up statistics that distinguish between goods and services, I can find (http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/2503191/From-Empire-to-EU-UK-trade.html):

"The UK’s lack of export competitiveness and widening trade deficit is a cause for concern today, but it is far from historically unusual. Imports exceeded exports (by value) for 32 consecutive years between 1924 and 1955 and the UK has run a deficit for 78 of the 111 years since 1908. "

I'm not sure if the article text had a more narrow meaning in context.

Willhsmit (talk) 21:38, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

There was definitely a big change. I was there. I remember. As for stats, the series of data on unemployment changed in the mid 80s and I don't know how to help on import / export related stuff.- John - 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:E2F9:F00:FC1C:230B:2E60:9410 (talk) 19:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

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Worldwide view
The lead says there was also a recession in Japan and the other OECD countries, but there is no text yet describing the recession outside the US, Canada, and UK. Wikiacc (¶) 14:15, 14 June 2020 (UTC)