Tapsearch Com EditorLate 1970s and early 1980s - the years of calm before the economic storm (LINK)
December 30th 2007 04:39
Bizarre Politics Reports:
Greenspan - The Calm before the Storm
A view of Greenspan from the trenches continued - by Ray Tapajna
In the latter years of the 1970s, while Greenspan was getting his Ph.d after President Carter ended Greenspan's appointment to the Council of Economic Advisers, there were vast changes taking place in the economy but they seemed to be natural economic transitions especially in the computer industry. This was before the stampede began in an economic storm the U.S.A. The trickle down economy of Reagan and the outright attack on unions and workers began. The imports start flowing in after U.S. companies spent years in research and development of these products.
We were supplying 100 percent error free disk storage to customers. Up to that point in time 60 error count was considered to be the best product possible. We wrote about error recovery and helped save the government money. We helped jump start the Cat Scan Industry with the total error free disk products. The mainframes were being reasonably challenged by many mini-computer manufacturers who bundled their systems with good applications at a much lower competitive cost than mainframe computers. Systems Houses were coming up with all sorts of new software and operating systems.
There were also many micro computers starts up with many differen operating systems.
Our city was a hub of new high - tech industries. Silicon Valley was dynamically alive where new innovations came on a daily basis. Computer media was exploding with many new products. In the early 1980s, the French started the first versions of the internet called the Minitel. It was in almost all French homes in the mid 1980s. We could have learned alot about the internet from the French but U.S. computer engineers ignored it for the most part. We could have avoided many problems too if we brought the Minitel to the USA. Some large phone companies were looking at it but somehow computer companies were ruling the game.
I was with the top innovator of disk coating methods and hard drives in the Silicon Valley while working with others in bringing a good business micro computer to reality prior to the IBM compatible PC. I traveled to the Silicon Valley frequently but I was always happy to get back to the blue collar economy in Cleveland Ohio which was a real economy based on middle class production workers.
Most of the major corporations were still very active in the economy. Steel was beginning to experience difficulties but still was an essential part of the local value added economies.
President Carter was blamed for the slow down in the economy but he was loyal to the Free Enterprise System and believed it would work itself out of any problems based on history. However, by 1980, there were more than 400 US factories moved to Mexico under the Maquiladora factory program. In the next decade, the number jumped to 2000 and then when Free Trade was consummated by President Clinton, the number quickly doubled to 4000 factories moved to Mexico. The betrayal of the America Worker was completed
In 1981, President Reagan broought Greenspan back into the picture and the assault on workers began. President Reagan with Greenspan's advice radically raised the payroll tax which became a tax on work. They found a way to tax the poor without looking bad doing it. The local value added economies were doomed. The many high technology startups and ten year old computer related companies start dying away. The end was near for any computers made in the USA. By 1990, we experienced the closing of more than a thousand customers in our own business and about a thousand computer dealers and system houses in just the tri-state area around us went out of business. There were supposedly computer standard meetings in Japan but they were really all about knocking out the U.S. computer industry. We served the industrial computer manufacturers in this country and they could not work with the components coming from Asia that changed specs by the day.
No need to look for any of this information in The Age of Turbulence by Greenspan. He did not trust human nature and put greed on the economic altar as something good.
( To be continued )
In the latter years of the 1970s, while Greenspan was getting his Ph.d after President Carter ended Greenspan's appointment to the Council of Economic Advisers, there were vast changes taking place in the economy but they seemed to be natural economic transitions especially in the computer industry. This was before the stampede began in an economic storm the U.S.A. The trickle down economy of Reagan and the outright attack on unions and workers began. The imports start flowing in after U.S. companies spent years in research and development of these products.
We were supplying 100 percent error free disk storage to customers. Up to that point in time 60 error count was considered to be the best product possible. We wrote about error recovery and helped save the government money. We helped jump start the Cat Scan Industry with the total error free disk products. The mainframes were being reasonably challenged by many mini-computer manufacturers who bundled their systems with good applications at a much lower competitive cost than mainframe computers. Systems Houses were coming up with all sorts of new software and operating systems.
There were also many micro computers starts up with many differen operating systems.
Our city was a hub of new high - tech industries. Silicon Valley was dynamically alive where new innovations came on a daily basis. Computer media was exploding with many new products. In the early 1980s, the French started the first versions of the internet called the Minitel. It was in almost all French homes in the mid 1980s. We could have learned alot about the internet from the French but U.S. computer engineers ignored it for the most part. We could have avoided many problems too if we brought the Minitel to the USA. Some large phone companies were looking at it but somehow computer companies were ruling the game.
I was with the top innovator of disk coating methods and hard drives in the Silicon Valley while working with others in bringing a good business micro computer to reality prior to the IBM compatible PC. I traveled to the Silicon Valley frequently but I was always happy to get back to the blue collar economy in Cleveland Ohio which was a real economy based on middle class production workers.
Most of the major corporations were still very active in the economy. Steel was beginning to experience difficulties but still was an essential part of the local value added economies.
President Carter was blamed for the slow down in the economy but he was loyal to the Free Enterprise System and believed it would work itself out of any problems based on history. However, by 1980, there were more than 400 US factories moved to Mexico under the Maquiladora factory program. In the next decade, the number jumped to 2000 and then when Free Trade was consummated by President Clinton, the number quickly doubled to 4000 factories moved to Mexico. The betrayal of the America Worker was completed
In 1981, President Reagan broought Greenspan back into the picture and the assault on workers began. President Reagan with Greenspan's advice radically raised the payroll tax which became a tax on work. They found a way to tax the poor without looking bad doing it. The local value added economies were doomed. The many high technology startups and ten year old computer related companies start dying away. The end was near for any computers made in the USA. By 1990, we experienced the closing of more than a thousand customers in our own business and about a thousand computer dealers and system houses in just the tri-state area around us went out of business. There were supposedly computer standard meetings in Japan but they were really all about knocking out the U.S. computer industry. We served the industrial computer manufacturers in this country and they could not work with the components coming from Asia that changed specs by the day.
No need to look for any of this information in The Age of Turbulence by Greenspan. He did not trust human nature and put greed on the economic altar as something good.
( To be continued )
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