HIST 132 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Diners Club International, William Levitt, Eniac
Document Summary
Living the good life: economic prosperity, gross national product- value of all the country"s output of goods and services, 3. 2% each year, factors, cold war- federal spending for defense and foreign aid stimulated demand for. Shortage of consumer goods (during wwii: emergence of computing, electronic numerical integrator and computer (eniac, 1946, universal automatic computer (univac, billion annually. Service sector job are hotel jobs, dry cleaning: a worker economy, high employment, low inflation, and raising incomes, hourly pay doubled, consumer products rose 2% Less than 5% unemployment: making more money then they every had before, they are making more but the products are not costing that much more. Labor peace: they had everything they wanted, suburban dream. Interstate freeways connecting suburbs and cities: eisenhower, autobahn, pursuit of pleasure, diners club- first independent credit card, could put people in debt. Shopping mails: mcdonald"s, 1948-san bernardino, 15 cent hamburgers. Self-service counter: ray kroc, des plaines, il 1955.
