The iron curtain separated Europe.
Across the Atlantic, Ronald Reagan's second term in the White House was drawing to a close. Donald Trump floated the idea that George Bush might want him as his running mate in the US election, an overture Bush described as "strange and unbelievable".
This was the political backdrop when I joined the Guardian in 1988 - the year before Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide WebIt was a time when free market ideas ruled.
A combination of high inflation and recession - stagflation - in the 1970s had led to a crisis of postwar social democracy and given rise to a new set of beliefs: privatisation, deregulation, tax cuts paid for by shrinking the state, curbs on trade unions, the dismantling of capital controls. All this would give capitalism its mojo back, leading to wealth creation that would trickle down from those at the top to those struggling at the bottom.
Since this is my last column after more than 28 years as the Guardian's economics editor, I thought I would devote it to some lessons learned in my time on the paper.
Lesson No 1 is that the free-market experiment has failed. Wealth did not trickle down, and the gap between the haves and the have-nots widened. Workers laid off when factories closed in northern England and the US midwest did not find new well-paid jobs but were either thrown on the scrapheap or found low-paid insecure work in call centres and distribution warehouses.
Denne historien er fra November 22, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra November 22, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Friendship interrupted
They were best mates. Then one had a baby, while the other struggled to conceive. They share their brutally honest takes on what happens when motherhood affects friendship
KERNELS OF HOPE
During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection, the first of its kind, had to protect it from fire, rodents-and hunger
A new horizon' The inverse link between cancer and dementia
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Frank Auerbach 1931 -2024
Saved from the Holocaust, this artist captured the devastation of postwar Britain as ifits wounds were his own but he ultimately found salvation in painting
Seven lessons I've learned after 28 years as economics editor
Margaret Thatcher was Britain's prime minister and Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour party.
Droughtstricken dam leaves economies powerless
A ll is not well with the waters of Lake Kariba, the world's human-made lake largest A punishing drought has drained the huge reservoir close to record lows, raising the prospect that the Kariba Dam, which powers the economies of Zambia and Zimbabwe, may have to shut down for the first time in its 65-year history.
Let this be the end of these excruciating celebrity endorsements
I wish celebrities would learn the art of the French exit. But they can't, which is why Eva Longoria has announced she no longer lives in America. \"I get to escape and go somewhere,\" she explained.
Alive, but unable to thrive under absolute patriarchy
Since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls have tried defiance, but despair at their harshly restricted lives
‘It's tragic’ Reflection in the wake of Amsterdam violence
Carrying signs scrawled with messages urging unity, they laid white roses at the statue of Anne Frank, steps away from the home where her family had hidden from Nazi persecution.
