On the first anniversary of the financial crash, I have been thinking of the role oil played. Most pundits cite re-setting mortgage rates as the precipitate cause, but I believe the sudden spike in energy prices earlier that summer — and the resulting inflation in food and other prices — acted as the tipping point for many American families already living beyond their means.
Oil played a similar destructive role in the stagflation of the1970s. Then there were price spikes and shortages, lines waiting for gas. But the financial world was different. People were not used to living so far beyond their means — if you didn’t have the cash, you had to cut back. Far fewer women worked so when family finances became strained in the 1970s, women went out and got a job. Stagflation pushed women into the workplace as much as the women’s movement. The two person family economy has been how the American family has coped since then.
Both then and now, Americans predicated their lives on the assumption of permanent cheap energy. In this century, it was the huge house in the exurbs. His and her SUVs.
In the 1970s, food and gas couldn’t be paid for with a credit card. Everyone does now. We were told — why save? Hand your money over to a financial advisor, work that 401(k). Invest in real estate: it’s America — indulge —you’ll earn more in a couple years to afford it. But how could that work out for everyone?
Unlike the 1970s, wages have not kept pace with the real cost of living. Partly because of their confrontational tactics in the 1970s, unions became targets. As quickly as possible, jobs were shipped to cheaper more accommodating foreign shores. A college education is no longer the ticket to a glamorous life, just enough to get you a middle class one. Upward mobility is the American dream, but for two decades it has become increasingly a dream.
So when last year’s oil spike came, we were already too close to the edge in our lives. Except, unlike the 1970s, we had fewer escape hatches. Everyone in the family was already working for less and less. The house in the exurbs couldn’t be sold or moved closer in. We were already near our over-extended credit limit. As speculators, looking for the next big thing, assured us that demand would force oil to $200 a barrel, the tsunami that had been harmlessly rolling on, unseen, in the deep sea finally snagged on the shore.
My recollection is that the average American could sense something very bad coming in June, even though the pundits and financial stars were still telling us Bear Stearns was a fluke. It was the beginning of the crash, where we finally realized our debt had totally swamped our savings and this time, we had no buffer.
