Forum Post: The Golden Age of America
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 9, 2011, 4:09 p.m. EST by ltjaxson
(184)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The 'Golden Age' of America happened when the taxes were the highest and the regulations were the toughest in the nation's history.
The politics of the time (40s-late 60s) was known as the "iberal consensus,' and the economic system as "embedded liberalism."
Read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States
For a more in-depth analysis read Eric Foner's American freedom
It ended when the emphasis was switched to supply-side economics from the demand-side economics that took production from American workers who were represented by unions and limited the bottom line from the CEOs and shareholders and shipped jobs overseas to cut production cost and increase sales!
You've packed a lot of truth in that one sentence.
We must expose the conservative/neoliberal revolution for what it is - the real American jobs killer... Worker-led industry is the future. We can no longer afford a system that perpetuates the capital controlling the labor force, because we all know that the labor force should control the capital!
LOL. The Golden age of America was when stuff was actually made in America by Americans. Walk the isles of your local market and you will realize that the freedom that allows you to save money on foreign made goods has been subverted.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-war-with-america-was-won-before-the-first-shot/
Very good point. May I add that happened at a time when private section unions were at its highest and almost every other industry profited from fair wages for fair work, an end to universal sufrages, regulated pay scale and 15 minute breaks....
isn't research great. But you have to factor in the rebuilding of the world after WWII
Indeed. I guess that is the point - the economic expansion happened when our national debt was 150 times greater than our GDP. All of the govt. initiatives that allowed commerce to flourish were payed for through taxes and regulations. Without a state-of -the art- infastructure, the economic boom would have been limited. China and India and doing the exact same thing through massive stimuli to create a modern infastructure. We cannot even modernize ours without the dimwits screaming 'stimulus - stimulus' as if it were a bad word!
we just got to get the crooks out so we can have confidence in the market, hence begin to pay down our debt with our trading partners.
Debt is not the problem - remeber: there has never been a recession caused by budget defecits, they have and always will be caused by unregulated banks! If consumer confidence is your arguement, then perhaps we should take some effective measures to ensure a sustanable economy.
1.) Re-implement Provision Q of Glass-Steagal that separates commercial banks (main street) from investment banks (wall street). It will eliminate bail-outs and end the vicious cycle of boom and bust. 2.) Support worker-led industry. Remove the shareholder and start-up interest with a co-operative like system that replaces the 'capital adventurers' with the workers. While this allows the worker to reap the benefits of profit-sharing, it also gives the employee voting rights No employee is going to vote to send their jobs overseas just because it improves the bottom line.
This will produce a less volitile and a more sustanable economy - thus allow confidence to resume
so how do you suggest we pay back our imaginary debt that we owe china. Yes, the unregulated banks are a problem that the crooks, which i mentioned previously, put in to place. debt for America is not a problem, but debt with other nations is. there is no confidence in big lending, retail, or other private institutions while there is crooks running the show. and your ideas are great but they will never be implemented until this vanguard is replaced. they, in their minds, know more than you. their confidence has to be wavered as much as our confidence has been, or they will continue to play caption america.
OK - how do we waver their confidence?
all of the occupy operations have to continue until the vanguard's bill folds become light. the occupation will most likely effect middle class america first, and then they will be forced to re examine their choices. I did not take us over night to get into this problem, so it won't go away over night either. If you look at the elections throughout the states you will see it is already begun to shift back to a dialogue of change. Historically, there is nothing new under the sun. we've, as a nation, been here before and no matter the safe guards we put in, posterity will probably have to deal with it again. sorry, I could be of no help. just keep on keeping on.
good post!
More than half the debt is held by citizens.
The market leverages debt for profit.
You should have a basic understanding of how and why things (don't) work before offering solutions to fix them.
excuse me, don't get puffy with me. I probably know more about our current conundrum than you. If you take every book I'v read on this subject, i'd wager I could box you out of this conversation. good day, sir.
Still waiting ... only 3 days now. LOL
I know how we got here, but i'm clueless as to why the system no longer works. what would you suggest as a solution?
Your reading list is supposed to explain it all. At least it was three days ago. Where is it? Under the superman comics on top of the toilet tank?
Please enlighten us with your reading list.
The golden age ended long ago, when Israel (Aipac and other parasite loobyist) took over everything and Uncle got Scammed....big time.
God Save the Queen...
Ironically the ‘Golden Age’ of America that you so revere came to an end as a direct consequence of progressive movements like OWS.
Prior to around 1965 America was a Western nation predicated on Western values, a nation where communities were every bit as important as individuals, and where people had a clear sense of what constituted the American identity. At this time too Americans respected the authority and legitimacy of the government without looking to it to solve all of their problems; most citizens also had no delusions of entitlement and were willing to do difficult jobs for the good of the community.
This America came to an end when progressives waged a war on American identity, no longer was an American a “free white citizen of good character” as so defined by the Naturalization Act of 1790, as affirmed by the 1924 Immigration Act, nor was an American the literal or spiritual progeny that the preamble to the constitution says that this nations laws were founded for. Ask yourself what does it mean to be an American, when citizenship is handed to anybody willing to come here? What loyalty do you have to America and to your community when you have nothing in common with the vast majority of your fellow citizens and when many citizens don’t respect the principles that our government was founded on?
Why is there rampant greed, materialism, consumerism, a lack of ethics, a lack of loyalty, rampant decadence, etc. in America today? Because liberals and progressives have made America into a meaningless propositional utopia, meanwhile through the embrace of nihilism and rationalism man has become defined by his wealth, by his sexual conquests, by his power and prestige, and no longer his honor, loyalty, ethics, and reputation. In conclusion, don’t look to progressives like the entitled, nihilistic, consumerist, hipster crowd at OWS to solve America’s deep-seated spiritual, ethical, philosophical, demographic, and financial problems, when their track record shows that they will only make them worse.
I have one other point: Do you think the progressive movements of the beginning of the 20th century also destroyed America? Were things like free education, police and fire departments, libraries, national parks, regular sanitation pick-ups, anti-monopolies legislation, municipal parks, etc bad for America? What about the progressive movements of the 1930s? Were stronger regulations on banks bad? Were creating minimum wage, 40 hour work week, social security bad for America? Were the progressive movements of the 1960s bad for America? Was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the end of segregation, the right to vote for blacks, the end of Jim Crow episodes of and the klu klux klan bad for America? Was medicare and medicade bad for America?
I can assure you my friend, I have much more in common with the many citizens that you describe as not having or respecting the principles of our government, than I do with you. Good luck...
No. Sir, That had to do with the end of the War and the huge boom that followed. The baby boomers were raised by di-hard patriotic people who were proud to have served this nation. The spirits were high and the environment was rich for business.
You should read a real history book and throw your high school textbook away! It was written by the govt.
May I suggest Kevin Mattison 'Liberalism for a new Century', Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States', or James Patterson's 'Grand Expectations' - Eric Fomer's 'American Freedom' is also very good.
Patriotism did nothing for the economic boom that followed the war. Economic imperialism was the reason for the economic boom of post war America, beginning with the Marshall Plan. The economic vaccum of the fall of the British Empire, Japan and the German economies created a sitution right for world economic dominance. Unions help harness that dominance and to ensure the rise of the middle class!
I am way passed high school buddy. Your Rachael Maddow assessment of the years following the war are totally ridiculous. Yes, people were taxed at very high rates. However, there weren't the restrictions on sales and business. The boom was a result of the gung ho American attitude following the return of our troops.
Again, how does patriotism spur economic growth?
you must be a Canadian. Buddy, if we had that same mentality now that we had back then, we wouldn't be in this mess. We wouldn't have elected a borderline communist, and we wouldn't be acting like a broken victim.
Dwight Eisenhower was more of a communist than Obama as proof of his mulitple infastructure stimuli programs, stringent control over a planned economy and strick adherence to the New Deal. Furthermore, there were more protest and strike during that period than there are now... I need some type of informative debate other than sensational soundbites and Bill O'Reily type 'buddies' One last time, how did patriotism spur economic growth?