High Oil prices was not the reason for Carter's demise. It was the Iranian Hostage Crisis.From the moment the Embassy in Tehran was overrun by Islamic extremist to the moment Reagan was sworn in as president over a year had past. No doubt Carter inherited an impossible situation and he and his advisors made the worst of it.
Originally Posted by acp5762
You do realize we got all the hostages back unharmed?
Had gas prices not been so high , Carter would have won reelection IMHO
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-obama/253899/
No. 1: The U.S. isn't in a fight to the death with inflation
If there's a single graph that captures the misery of America's economy in the 1970s and early 1980s, it's the one below. That blue line? It's the non-core inflation rate, which includes the cost of goods like food and energy which get left out of other measures. Notice that in late 1978, when the Iranian revolution helped send oil prices soaring, prices were already rising at more than 7 percent a year. U.S. policy makers had been trying and failing to slay inflation for most of the decade, and the sudden shock of high oil prices helped set the rate completely out of control. Expensive crude made gas, as well as consumer goods, more expensive. That sent workers bargaining for higher wages, which made prices to rise further. Presto chango: an inflationary spiral.