WHAT THE SECOND WISE MONKEY DELIVERED
Seeing that picture of the Three Wise Monkeys at Yalta, brought to mind the legacy that FDR provided to the US. FDR in a letter to his brother wrote that he, that is FDR, saved American Capitalism. During the great depression FDR basically said to the captains of US industry that if they didn't give up some of their wealth they would lose the lot through revolution. Thus came the "New Deal" in which the marginal tax rate rose to 90%.
The New Deal saw the building of much of the modern US infrastructure and with the war galvanizing manufacturing in America, America at the end of the war had 50% of the worlds wealth. Bretton Woods and the Marshal Plan put the icing on the cake and America entered it's real "golden age." During this period American's enjoyed the best wages in the world with which they could purchase an endless supply of sophisticated consumer goods, houses and holidays. America had a mixed economy with a private but highly regulated electricity network which provided cheap, unlimited power for American Industry and homes. Telephony was also a private monopoly, highly regulated, but profitable. During this time Americans invented the microchip, put a man on the moon, developed sophisticated communications and spy satellites and made huge advances in medicine. Underpinning this was the Crown Jewels of America, it's Education system of State Schools and independent universities, the best in the world.
All this founderred on the Vietnam war, America became a debtor Nation. America went from being an Empire of Production to an Empire of Consumption. The rich fought back against the labour movement dismantling the New Deal and ushering in a Neo-Feudal order, sometime known as Neo Liberal economics.
In the nineties the Democrats who had always been "the workers' party" ditched labour for Wall Street so that by 2000 the new deal was dead.
WIll Trump make a New Deal for American Workers? No. Under Trump America will change from a Corporate Kleptocracy to a kelptocracy of Oligarchs owned and run by people like Musk. Ordinary Americans will be caught in debt traps which will prevent them fighting back for a bigger piece of the pie. The greatest of these debt traps will be student debt which will be extended from university to a privatised primary and secondary school system. People will be trapped as soon as they go to school. The US government spends 600 billion a year on education and the hedge funds want it.
FDR didn't just save American capitalism he prevented the US going down the path of fascism as Germany, Spain and Italy did prior to WWII. In this new revolution fascism is well, under way, with the disparagement of judges by the executive which will lead to destruction of the rule of law, the trashing of the constitution and the final dismantling of the regulatory function of government essential to prevent the greater excesses of the owners of capital. Trump has put one of his favored oligarchs, Elon Musk, in charge of the regulatory dismantling. No conflict of interest there!
If Trump does help end the Ukraine war, (it will end without him) and Trump keeps the US from war with Iran and China he will have done some good, but will ordinary Americans be better off than they are now. Highly unlikely, a few might most won't. They are about to be replaced by humanoid robots and large language models.
