The Water Cooler – What Has Been The Best Decade Since 1940?

The post GFC ZIRP period from 2010 to 2020. Free money and insane asset growth that allowed me to retire very early. I feel bad for kids these days that will almost certainly never experience these kinds of economic conditions ever again.

1970’s …. just about everything was better / improving ..except for the fictitious “gas shortage” ’73-74 that was just a big oil ploy to raise prices

For me, the 70s were the most enjoyable. For the country, the 50s were the best. WWII was over, soldiers were returning home, getting married, buying a home, a new car, a television, and raising a family. New homes being built, and new cars rolling off the assembly line were an indication of economic growth and prosperity. Americans had pride in their accomplishments and of their country.
Europe and Japan were rebuilt, further boosting the economy by creating jobs and worldwide trading of goods that were made in America. The 50s was an era before giant corporations, and big government stated taking over our lives, and Eisenhower was president.
Music was made great by talented musicians without the aid of computers, and synthesizers. Rock-n-roll was born in the 50s with greats like Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, and Bill Haley and the Comets.
In the 50s there was less crime, people didn’t lock their doors, and children were allowed to play outside all day until dinner time, and the parents didn’t feel the need to worry about them. The 50s were also the start of the space program, paving the way to the invention of modern electronics such as home computers, and cell phones.
Public schools were stricter, and the teachers had more authority, children knew if they misbehaved they would get in trouble. But the 50s wasn’t all peaches and cream, there was the Korean War, and the beginning of the Cold War which created fear and anxiety among many Americans, some even built bomb shelters.

If you take the government out of it they were all good. Put the government back in and there has been some strange stuff going on in the country the last eighty years.

The decade where l had the must fun and the most excitement..The sixties, l was a teenager in the early sixties, still lived at home off and on. As far back as l can remember l wanted to get away from the area where l grew up, not my parents, but the country side, the cows etc. Got work in a town 10 miles away, made friends. Later went to a boarding school close to Germany. Then the kibbutz in lsrael with friends from the boarding school, later Iceland for 3 months, from there hitchhiked through Northern Europe for 6 weeks. 3 months after getting back to Denmark arrived at JFK January 1967 to become an au pair in Westport CT. Stayed there almost 2 years and had the greatest most exciting time of my life, dated, fell in love, made great friends. Music was great, parties were great. Went back to Denmark for 3 months, returned and moved to New York, another exciting chapter of my life. Couldn’t quite believe a little country girl that grew up with farmers in a very quiet area, were now living in the most exciting city in the world
.l suppose every decade has its charm, most of the seventies l was married, in the eighties l became a mother, hard to compare, but the sixties will always stand out because so much happened fairly quickly.
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