Talk:Economic Stabilization Act of 1970

Confusing claims without citing authority
The first example was the "inherited a mess" quote or maybe sound bite or catch phrase with no hint as to who said it or the source of that generalization. Perhaps this can be sorted from original source references, but if Nixon said this, or this was a press catch phrase, then that should be in the text. At least it is sourced so I'm hoping a good edit for style can improve the article covering a poorly covered period given the amount of history being made. Mulp (talk) 00:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have done a localized edit-for-style that chopped up the "inherited a mess" quote, and deleted entirely the uncited assertion that Johnson is at fault for rejecting his aides' advice.


 * The whole article seems to be written by a pupil studying legislation for the first time, quoting blather from the legislative text and excusing what Nixon "had to" do. There is no insight on a law that had agencies "stabilizing" (but not freezing) wages and prices, though allowing them to rise where there were extenuating factors (which is exactly what a free market does), and incorporating myriad distractions like the need for minority empowerment.


 * There is the hint that the subject of the 1970 Act (and its failure to achieve its stated goal) was a factor in Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. (I have moved this out of the paragraph's lead but can't wrestle it into actual chronological order with the information at hand.)  There is no inkling that the government's attempt to "stabilize" inflation went so poorly that President Ford, who completed Nixon's second term, would unveil Whip Inflation Now (WIN) lapel buttons, nor that under his successor Carter, it reached double digits.


 * The decoupling of the dollar from its backing in gold is the key; this article hides that in a bunch of factors from the Vietnam War to the social upheaval of the late 'Sixties. To be clear, you can wage war and have campus protests without trashing the money, provided you mind the total budget.  Failing to guarantee the value of the dollar, the article strains to hold Nixon and his new agencies blameless for the incoming tide of high prices.  Alternative explanations would be a welcome addition to the article; but right now, it fails to see the forest for the trees.  Spike-from-NH (talk) 03:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Connection to floating dollar
In 1970, Nixon floated the dollar, no longer holding to the fixed $35 gold exchange rate fiction. This had a big impact on oil economy nations which were forced to price in dollars which were quickly devalued. OPEC responded with price hikes to restore real prices. Not sure of Nixon's coupling of his actions floating the dollar and this act, but it is context. Mulp (talk) 00:34, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

IRS Involvement
I'm a little surprised that there is no mention of the fact that the Internal Revenue Service was given responsibility for receiving and investigating complaints filed by the public against any entity who raised rents, prices, etc.

I remember it well. My first government job was as a Statistical Reports Clerk for the office in Burlington, Vermont. Things happened fast enough that creation of the function brought in a very early and very cumbersome fax machine, the first one any of us had ever seen.

I can't say I know enough of the actual history of the task within the agency to write about it, except that various auditors and investigators were pulled from regular duties to staff the function.

--Mfwills (talk) 01:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Multiple definitional terms
I see this fairly often, where a page has a certain page title, but many associated topics redirect to the page as primary reference, which are not prominently treated, and actually pretty hard to tease out.

In a quick check for inbound redirects, I see these three which are not aliases for the main topic:


 * Economic Stabilization Program
 * Pay Board and Price Commission
 * U.S. Cost of Living Council

The Pay Board and the Price Commission are like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, conjoined in the mouth, entirely distinct entities on the ground.

After finding Nixon shock (which I added to the see also section) it's clear that this page does not provide nearly enough context around Bretton Woods and the collapsing system of international currency valuation.

With probably five distinct definitional jobs to perform, it's not such a great tactic to delegate the lead into "Background" and "Administration" as this page presently does.

I've made a few changes to make the lead stand better alone in its multiple duties, but I'll leave the rest for the next guy or gal. &mdash; MaxEnt 23:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at New York University supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2011 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:18, 2 January 2023 (UTC)