What’s happening to the economy?

Today’s economic downtown resembles the slowdown of the 1970s, when oil prices tripled, food prices soared and Americans worried.

The Associated Press

Record oil prices aren’t the only similarities between the current economic troubles and the slowdown of the 1970s. Economists say the parallels go much deeper.

Then as now, food prices rose along with energy. Then as now, declining home prices gave homeowners ulcers over equity. And the dollar, which held up fine in the 2001 recession, is falling now even more than it did in the early ’70s - 9 percent then on a trade-weighted basis, 14 percent in the last year, according to the Federal Reserve.

If the 1970s truly are a guide, there’s a lot farther to fall.

Back then, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 36 percent from its peak to its trough. Right now, the S&P 500 has only lost 15 percent from its record highs of October 2007.

Nearly 90 percent of chief financial officers of global public companies don’t see an economic recovery coming until 2009, according to a new survey by Duke University and CFO Magazine.