Whither the tramp?

The seven years between my last trip on the freights and the publication of Good Company in 1982 had seen extraordinary change in homelessness in America. An economic recession fueled by simultaneous inflation and unemployment took the peculiar name of “stagflation,” largely seen to be caused by oil price inflation in the early 1970s and the near collapse of the steel industry. ³⁰ Largely for these reasons, in 1980 Jimmy Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, who cut taxes as promised. The tax cut for industry, the largest in history, was intended to stimulate economic modernization, but it instead led to a feeding frenzy of corporate takeovers. In but one telling example American steel production essentially collapsed as US Steel bought Marathon Oil with retained tax revenues. Reagan's administration also cut social services to shrink the government, ³¹ urban renewal eliminated inexpensive housing for the poor, and gentrification replaced housing for the poor with housing for the middle class and rich in newly fashionable inner cities.