1979
“Last week, gold fever reached an unprecedented pitch,” Newsweek said. “The explosion in gold prices plainly reflected the growing concern over a tangle of economic problems: spiraling inflation and a consequent lack of faith in paper currency, a global economy threatened by recession and the real danger of higher oil prices, interrupted supplies—or both.” The past few months have seen echoes of 1979: spiking oil prices (which have retreated lately), and the U.S. Consumer Price Index in June climbed to 9.1 percent, highest since the ’80s, then cooled slightly to 8.3 percent in August.
1985
“A culminating horror for a Third World megalopolis that has come to symbolize all of the dangers of unbridled urban growth,” wrote Newsweek of the 8.1 Mexico City quake that caused at least 9,500…
