Letter: Inflation troubles could repeat

I’m a 76-year-old retired farmer so I’ve lived though this whole story in the 1970s and early 80s. It’s unbelievable how little some of our politicians and others have learned in the past 50 years.

Our problems in the 70s began when we became overly reliant on imported oil just as we are now. In the early 70s, our oil companies had discovered the largest oil reserves in the world on the Alaska North Slope. They immediately formed a partnership agreement to raise the billions of dollars necessary to develop the oilfield and build the pipeline to carry it to the lower states. Billions of dollars was spent on the pipe and machinery necessary for the project.

Just when we were reading about how we were going to end our dependence on Middle East oil forever, the environmental lobby sued to stop the proposed pipeline and everything came to a stop for most of the next decade, some of the companies went bankrupt, others were forced to merge to survive. Inflation roared for the next 10 years, farmland that cost $600 in 1970 was bringing $3800 in 1980 and a new car went from under $5,000 to $20,000.

The government tried every trick in the book to control the rising prices. Presidents attempted everything from wage and price controls to publicly shaming the companies.

Finally, in the late 70s after President Jimmy Carter’s approval dropped into the 30s and it became apparent that no amount of government controls would work, the Congress voted to pass the Alaska pipeline.

Opening Alaska to oil production largely took care of our extreme shortage of oil but then came the hard part, wringing the 12% inflation rate out of the system. By 1981 a new 30-year farm loan cost 12% interest plus 4 “points” up front.

The next several years have been referred to as the 80s farm crises, the price run up and subsequent crash resulted in half of the farms in the U.S. going out of business which in turn forced many rural banks as well as farm implement companies and dealerships to close or merge. Small and mid-sized Midwest cities almost became ghost towns after the loss of their local businesses and small manufacturing plants.

It may have been worth it if our government and green lobby had learned anything, but my fear is that we’re going through the whole thing again. Technology has given us the ability to produce the cheapest, safest, most dependable, least polluting energy in the world yet we have a group of uninformed politicians who would rather send our manufacturing jobs to China where they still produce almost all their electricity with the dirtiest most polluting coal plants in the world. Wake Up People!

Lou Faivre

Malta