There's room for a legitimate debate about whether Carter was a good President or not, but the financial issues of the time were created by the Fed like always. ((( Arthur F. Burns ))) was the chairman from 1970-78 (thanks Nixon), and he subscribed to the belief that the Fed should be managing unemployment though monetary policy. The 1970's were a period of easy money which drove inflation through the roof. When Volcker took over in 1978 he was smart enough to realize that the only way to end the crisis was massively high interest rates. None of this was Carter's doing. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan fucked this country so badly that we're only just now barely beginning to understand the extent.