Quote:Are you on my side?  You just proved my point completely.

 

America amassed a good amount of wealth prior to Teddy, FDR, and LBJ when they were that world's leading lender, backed by the gold standard.  Then, like every capitalist system that converts to socialism, social programs suddenly elevate the poor to a standard of living almost middle class.  And now you are beginning to see how the poor have stagnated.  Outside of the Great Depression, the poor had a higher standard of living than the rest of the world and it was on a continual, slow, steady incline.  Social programs are always a shot in the arm, but never a cure.

 

Are you kidding?

 

First 80 years of the nation the poor were LITERALLY SLAVES.

 

Slavery in the first 80 years.

 

After that came the Gilded Age which brought us such boons to the working class as company scrip and work camps.

 

Then came Teddy Roosevelt and started trying to establish a system of labor laws to help people.

 

A few years later a bunch of women died in a factory fire in NYC, perhaps you've heard of it?

 

Worker laws started improving, then we got the 1920's which mirrored GWB's years in a lot of ways. CUT TAXES and let the markets go nuts, leading directly to the great depression and the greatest leader this nation has ever had, FDR.

 

He terrified the right wing. He was ELECTED AS PRESIDENT FOUR TIMES!!!!

 

It's thanks to him that we have such luxuries as 30 year fixed rate mortgages.

 

It was during the ensuing 40 years from the middle of FDR's time in office until Reagan came along that the poor and middle class in this country pulled themselves up to the extent they did thanks to social programs and inexpensive education.

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