Decade of Crisis.

The decade of the 1970s was the most traumatic for the American economy since the Great Depression. Coming after nearly a quarter century of sustained prosperity and growth, the downturn of the 1970s hit with especially powerful force. Productivity was down, costs were up, unemployment soared, inflation was high, exports were low, imports swamped the market — nearly every economic indicator went south during the decade. The Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations tried a variety of innovative approaches to resuscitate the economy, but most failed, and the solutions often burdened the nation with new, unintended problems. In 1972, for example, the United States sold the Soviet Union millions of tons of wheat in an effort to reduce the trade deficit; the sale, however, precipitated a 32 percent jump in food prices and much consumer anger in 1973. Although the causes of the economic decline of...