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And that's wasn't the first Cold War related layoff period, we largely stopped fighting it in the '70s (roughly "Vietnam" through when the Soviet invasion of Af

by hga 11y ago

And that's wasn't the first Cold War related layoff period, we largely stopped fighting it in the '70s (roughly "Vietnam" through when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave Carter a clue), and between that and the end of the Apollo program aerospace crashed and never returned to its old level. My family hired an EE to do electrical engineering in ~1972 and he was thrilled to be able to get back to it after doing all sort of random service jobs including "cleaning toilets" (the latter might have been exaggerated to me to motivate working hard to get into college), I learned a whole lot from him.

dredmorbius 11y ago
Interesting. So this crash happened before the oil embargo (fall, 1973)?
- hga 11y ago
  Yes, before the oil embargo. Since the DoD and NASA/the space industry were and probably still are the biggest buyers, and US airlines were completely regulated in that period, oil, or rather, distillate prices wouldn't have had a great effect. For that matter, certainly nowadays higher oil prices can mean more business for airplane companies as that makes buying more efficient planes more important.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Possibly a short-term uptick, but problematic longer term. Take marine shipping as a similar case. Recent vessels were desiggned for high-cost fuel and slow sreaming, or so they tell us. But petroleum prices, and bunker fuel, have plummetted. Hulls last 20+ years. And shipping overall is down. Problem is demand-side.
    - iofj 11y ago
      > And shipping overall is down. Problem is demand-side. Really ? All economic indicators (manufacturing index, employment, ...) seem to indicate otherwise. If problem is indeed demand side, wouldn't you see a serious crash right about now ?
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        We aren't? Look up shipping indices. Baltic Dry Index, etc. All massively down since mid-2015.
        iofj 11y ago
        Well sure, but equities certainly don't seem to have gotten the message.
        dredmorbius 11y ago
        Liquidity seeks returns. Asset price inflation isn't economic growth. And a strengthening labour market would see rising wages. They're rather curiously not. For some decades now.
porker 11y ago
> through when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave Carter a clue) I've not heard that before - what clue did it give him?
- hga 11y ago
  That his approach to the Soviets was not correct, and, say, his literal as well as figurative hugging of Brezhnev was ill advised. He made a number of replies, only two or so of which were productive: Issued an ultimatum that we would not attend the upcoming Summer Olympics held in Moscow if they did not withdraw. That really showed them! Grain export embargo, which only hurt us, and is generally considered to be immoral in a non-hot war context, as Reagan pointed out. Reinstated draft registration, which did not go down well after he'd pardoned Vietnam era draft dodgers on his first day in office. Reversed course with relations with Pakistan, which he'd previously trashed, and with it supported the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets. In theory reversed course and started rearming, although due to the budget cycle that pretty much had to be proposals that would only be fulfilled by the next president, which of course didn't turn out to be him (note that Wikipedia's entries on him are silent on this general issue, you have to e.g. go to the B-1 bomber page to learn of his canceling it, and how difficult a decision he said it was).
Gibbon1 11y ago
My dad has a story about working for TRW in spring of 1971. One of his older wiser coworkers came into his office and said 'take a look at this', and laid down the previous three months worth of internal TRW phone books. They were rapidly getting thinner each month. My dad decided he needed to get out and get out now. Through an old work friend[1] he managed to swing a government position in the Bay Area which he kept for the next 30 years. He said before he got that job he was thinking his retirement would be to a cardboard box. [1] Friend pulled my dads application out of a pile of about 500 and stuck it on the top. If you ever want to know what petty corruption is, that's it.
- marktangotango 11y ago
  That's not corruption, that's networking :)
  - SilasX 11y ago
    Sufficiently advanced networking is indistinguishable from corruption. (Or the other way around, I don't know.)

by hga 11y ago

dredmorbius 11y ago

Interesting. So this crash happened before the oil embargo (fall, 1973)?

hga 11y ago
Yes, before the oil embargo. Since the DoD and NASA/the space industry were and probably still are the biggest buyers, and US airlines were completely regulated in that period, oil, or rather, distillate prices wouldn't have had a great effect. For that matter, certainly nowadays higher oil prices can mean more business for airplane companies as that makes buying more efficient planes more important.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  Possibly a short-term uptick, but problematic longer term. Take marine shipping as a similar case. Recent vessels were desiggned for high-cost fuel and slow sreaming, or so they tell us. But petroleum prices, and bunker fuel, have plummetted. Hulls last 20+ years. And shipping overall is down. Problem is demand-side.
  - iofj 11y ago
    > And shipping overall is down. Problem is demand-side. Really ? All economic indicators (manufacturing index, employment, ...) seem to indicate otherwise. If problem is indeed demand side, wouldn't you see a serious crash right about now ?
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      We aren't? Look up shipping indices. Baltic Dry Index, etc. All massively down since mid-2015.
      - iofj 11y ago
        Well sure, but equities certainly don't seem to have gotten the message.
        dredmorbius 11y ago
        Liquidity seeks returns. Asset price inflation isn't economic growth. And a strengthening labour market would see rising wages. They're rather curiously not. For some decades now.

porker 11y ago

> through when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan gave Carter a clue) I've not heard that before - what clue did it give him?

hga 11y ago
That his approach to the Soviets was not correct, and, say, his literal as well as figurative hugging of Brezhnev was ill advised. He made a number of replies, only two or so of which were productive: Issued an ultimatum that we would not attend the upcoming Summer Olympics held in Moscow if they did not withdraw. That really showed them! Grain export embargo, which only hurt us, and is generally considered to be immoral in a non-hot war context, as Reagan pointed out. Reinstated draft registration, which did not go down well after he'd pardoned Vietnam era draft dodgers on his first day in office. Reversed course with relations with Pakistan, which he'd previously trashed, and with it supported the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets. In theory reversed course and started rearming, although due to the budget cycle that pretty much had to be proposals that would only be fulfilled by the next president, which of course didn't turn out to be him (note that Wikipedia's entries on him are silent on this general issue, you have to e.g. go to the B-1 bomber page to learn of his canceling it, and how difficult a decision he said it was).

Gibbon1 11y ago

My dad has a story about working for TRW in spring of 1971. One of his older wiser coworkers came into his office and said 'take a look at this', and laid down the previous three months worth of internal TRW phone books. They were rapidly getting thinner each month. My dad decided he needed to get out and get out now. Through an old work friend[1] he managed to swing a government position in the Bay Area which he kept for the next 30 years. He said before he got that job he was thinking his retirement would be to a cardboard box. [1] Friend pulled my dads application out of a pile of about 500 and stuck it on the top. If you ever want to know what petty corruption is, that's it.

marktangotango 11y ago
That's not corruption, that's networking :)
- SilasX 11y ago
  Sufficiently advanced networking is indistinguishable from corruption. (Or the other way around, I don't know.)