I was an adult in the 70's. I remember the long gas lines, soaring inflation and runaway interest rates, especially the mortgage rates. My wife and I bought a house for $30K at nearly 13% interest rate so my mortgage was over twice what I would pay for the current home we purchased 20 years ago. And, our current home was twice the cost and twice as large.
What really makes this time we are in worse than the 1970's is, as a nation, we were not as divided on the core issues of liberty and freedom that we are now.
It isn't hard times or difficulties that destroy a nation, those things usually unite a people; but this time we are so divided (politically, religiously, economically and ideologically) that no nation can survive in tact and that is what concerns me the most is the great divide in America that we haven't witnessed since the mid 1800's.
Can we survive it without an actual shots fired civil war? I simply don't know at this point.
Pray for America. Why pray? Because as America goes, so goes the world.