General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Is More Evil Than Walmart and McDonald’s [View all]guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Reagan's success, in my view, was that the debate in the US was reframed during his presidency. Wages are still stagnant because any attempt at raising wages for workers is met with the argument that the economy cannot afford higher wages. Except, of course, for the 1% who always need more to create the jobs that they are not, in fact, creating.
The fact that unionization in the US is at its lowest level since the 1920's is ignored by the politicians and media who persist in painting unions as the real problem with the economy. The US economy was far healthier in the 40s-60s because wages and levels of unionization were high for workers while taxes on the 1% were high enough to discourage speculative money schemes.
Actual productive industry has been replaced by a service economy with minimally waged jobs replacing living wage jobs.
We have minimal electoral participation in the US. partly because, as Ralph Nader observed, the 2 major parties are merely the opposite sides of the same corporate coin.
200 years from Reagan's death, we might be discussing the coming electoral campaign between Galacticus Bush and Starfighter Clinton. Scary, but possible.
My opinions