Follow the economic news in the "media" and it is all gloom and doom, the sky is falling, the end is near, it's all over, America is no longer viable and on ad finitum. Look at the "news" often enough and you just want to close the garage door, turn on the ignition and end the misery.
Study history and you discover that the "media" has always been that way. The world has always been "Going to hell in a hand basket".
Rather than listen, watch and read all that blather, let's take a look at the numbers and see where we are relative to our history. It tells a revealing story and here it is.
- Average economic growth in the U.S. has not only been positive for almost the entire last quarter century, but for much of that period the rate of growth has accelerated. Total economic output in 1982: $5.1 trillion. Last year: $11.3 trillion (all numbers here in real 2000 dollars). Per capita economic output in 1982: $22,400. Last year: $37,807. The average unemployment rate in the 1970's was nearly 7% and it has declined on average every decade since. The service sector in 1982: $1 trillion. In 2006: $5.5 trillion. In the year 2007 American manufacturers produced more in terms of total output than in any year in our history.
- The Dow began the 1980's at 825. Today it remains around 12,000. In 1983 19% of American households owned stocks. In 2005: 50%. In 1989 the median family net worth was $69,000. In 2004: $93,000.
- Among families living below the poverty line in the early 1970's, under 40% had a car, almost none had color TV and AC was essentially nonexistent. In 2004: 46% owned their homes, 75% owned at least one car, 97% had color TV and 67% had AC. The U.S. currently has the "richest" poor in the world.
- 1975: 9.8 million cable TV subscribers. 2006: 65 million. 1985: 2.1 million personal computers. 2007: 243 million. Let's not even compare cell phone subscriber statistics of which there were 243 million in 2007.
- 1970 infant mortality rate: 20 deaths per 1,000 people. 2002: 7 deaths per 1,000 people. 1980 life expectancy: 74 years. 2008: 78 years.
Isn't this world and this life awful. If we all have to go to hell, this is a reasonably nice hand basket we find ourselves in. Enjoy your good life, it used to be a lot worse.
Taken from: remarks by Patrick Toomey, 1/29/08 at Hillsdale College.