No, it is realism. It is fact. Learn from history. Don't be a fool. You ignore history at your own peril. And it was American history, and it worked. It created the greatest nation on earth. And the path you espouse creates c*******m. Again a fact of history. Don't like what I say? Then prove me wrong. Show me how I am in error. In another article, earlier in this forum, I addressed exactly how the wealthy used bribery of congress to create laws that the wealthy used to hold down wages. Part of that was the opening of our markets to free trade - by allowing US corporations to open factories in cheap labor countries like China and bring the goods back into America free of tariffs. That, alone, was a major cause of wage stagnation. That, too, is history. Don't agree? Show me an example of a democratic socialist governed nation that moved into c*******m. You cannot because they do not exist. You are espousing the continued depression of wages and the resulting poor economy and job losses that have resulted throughout history.

What made America great was the great economy that created confidence in the government and the American ideals due to most workers having the ability to buy a home, a car or two, and send a kid to college. All on one salary. This created good feelings toward the nation and the ideals of no man is above the law, America is the greatest, and most of us are equal.
Back then anyway. The great economy redulted in a great standard of living, which fed our sense greatness. No longer. And regardless of your opinion, a strong economy that gave p***e to American workers created the greatest nation on earth. As the economy diminished, so did good feelings about America and our greatness fell with it. Those are the facts, whether you like them or not. Yes, WWII added to the feelings of greatness, but only as long as the economy was great. That is no longer the case.

It had everything to do with it. Your disagreement means you have no clue what makes a nation great. No surprise there . Most MAGA hats have no understanding of economics or human nature, and no understanding of history. What makes a nation great is the attitude of the people. Their expectations drive them to make their country great. And they will go the extra mile to do so because of p***e. And this is possible only with a great economy. Because only when they have a great standard of living will the people make the nation great. And the only thing that has changed is the holding down of wages and the resulting reduction in standard of living and consequent withdrawal from going the extra mile and helping others. It comes down to p***e driving the greatness of people, and a decent standard of living affects p***e of the population. And that is what you apparently do not understand.

Looking back into European History, the middle ages and Dark Ages were a series of boom and bust, meaning that as the rulers became more and more greedy, and gradually extracted more and more from the peasants, eventually, the peasants rose up, k**led the wealthy rulers and educated people, and typically began a commune type existence. Eventually, this allowed the luckier few to gain economic advantage, and over time, the government again grew over years into the same thing it was before the revolt. There are numerous examples in the recent past. They include Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In each of these countries, the wealthy ran the country, and the workers were kept poor and uneducated. And the fact is that over time, the wealthy just kept on taking more and more from the working class until they could stand it no more. Ultimately, each country experienced a revolt by the working class, the rulers and educated were k**led, and a c*******t government was installed. Sadly, I see this coming to America at some undetermined date in the future if today’s government trends do not change. Over the last 50 years, the top earning 1 percent of Americans have gone from owning 35% of America’s wealth to now owning over 50%. Wages in real dollars have steadily declined as the wealthy and corporate leaders have gradually held wage growth down. Today, approximately 40% of wage earners are paid at or below the official poverty rate. If this trend continues, I can see where the poor laborers will, like others in their position throughout history, rise up and take the country to c*******m.

For a lot of years now, government, corporate leaders, and the wealthy of America have worked hard to convince all Americans that socialism is the door to c*******m and must always be avoided. Most Americans now believe that, even though it is not true at all. It was democratic socialism that dug us out of the Great Depression, and the initiation of making America the greatest nation on earth with the greatest economy, boosted by WWII. Unions added to that effort after WWII, and unions are an exact example of socialism. And that was what made America great. Not capitalism, which has the habit of concentrating a nation’s money in fewer and fewer hands over time. That is exactly what has been going on in America over the last 55 years. How did nearly all of Europe avoid c*******m? By moving to greater degrees of socialism, which is why, at present, much of Europe enjoys far better health care, education, and quality of life than we do here in America. And the wealthy and corporate leaders own Fox News and dictate the lies and half-t***hs and spin that Fox spews daily to anyone listening. Fox News is carefully crafted to convince Americans that the wealthy and corporate world are his salvation and key to a wealthy future, when nothing could be further from the t***h. And Fox takes great care to denigrate more factual newscasts, such as NBC, ABC, and CBS, in order to get you to believe they are the liars. This is not true. But MSNBC and CNN are not much better than Fox, on the liberal side. Please learn to get your news from more than one source, and you may be able to figure out the facts in cases.

Fact is, nothing but uncontrolled capitalism causes c*******m. Certainly no case of socialism has ever resulted in c*******m. American government over the last 55 years is almost entirely uncontrolled capitalism, and the working class has seen their ages held down over most of that time, ultimately gaining only about 18 percent in income over that time, adjusted for inflation. The wealthy, on the other hand, have increased their incomes by over 300 percent in that time. Back in the 60’s, the working class owned 65 percent of the total wealth in America. The top 10 percent owned the remaining 35 percent. Today, that has dropped to approximately a 50-50 share, meaning that 90 percent of the population only owns half the nation’s wealth. Why? 55 years of the wealthy taking more and more of the income generated, largely by the working class. I am actually happy I will probably not live another 5 or 6 years. I do not want to see the America I love destroyed by c*******m.

I was asked, in this forum, why I did not want America to be Great Again. Nothing could be further from the t***h. I know what made America Great, and it is NOT the GOP handing more and more to the already wealthy. That is exactly the opposite of what made America great. It is exactly the opposite of what builds a great economy. What builds a great economy is lots of the population having money to spend on goods and services. It works like this: You buy a sofa – someone else gets a job building another sofa. Spending money generates jobs. Nothing else does. And as more and more of the total wealth in America goes to fewer and fewer people, the economy is slowed. Fact. This is not opinion. This is absolute fact. When the working class has more money, they spend it, creating jobs. When the wealthy get more money, they already have all they need to purchase what they want, so they put it in offshore banks or bid up the stock market. They are not significantly increasing jobs. These are the facts of life in the economic sector. In fact, it was a Republican president, Calvin Coolidge, who caused the Great Depression by cutting taxes for the wealthy. The wealthy had no real need for the money, so used it to bid up the stock market, creating a huge bubble. The bubble burst, the market fell on Black Friday, and the Great Depression began that day. And Hoover, a Republican president, did nothing to improve the economy, and it took FDR and his social programs such as the CCC to get the economy headed back in the right direction, until it was topped off by WWII. And the time after that is described above. But FDR did not just give money away like Biden did. That is not the right thing to do to build an economy. The right thing to do is to create jobs that pay a decent salary. After that, the decent salaries generate more jobs as people spend the paychecks. More pay means more money in circulation which means more jobs, which feeds on itself to create a great economy, which is exactly what built the greatest nation on earth.