After World War II, the United States was the only major producer with its manufacturing base in place and intact. To preserve victory, we had to rebuild the economies of our former enemies, which also stimulated our economy. Potential competitors obtained newer machinery than we were using, enabling them to produce more efficiently. As this process moved toward completion, the world found that it no longer needed and could not afford our manufacturers. By 1973, the postwar boom was ending. People graduating with bachelor’s degrees found employers demanding master’s degrees and two years of experience. Taking refuge on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, the new grads found upper rungs overstaffed with the veterans of World War II and Korea. The tide that was to lift all boats was going out!

To boost the tide we created industries based on hyped fads and conveniences, extended consumer credit, sacrificing tomorrow’s business activity for today’s profits and opened the public purse to well-connected pickpockets. Now our government and our people are tapped out and, as Pete Peterson suggests in his book we are “Running on Empty.” Free market economics and trickle-down theories are dead, yet our economists and politicians continue trying to perform CPR on a corpse!

Our situation is the result of a devil’s bargain between voter, the politicians and the profiteers to keep the postwar economic boom going at any cost. We lost the bargain. The politicians are disgraced. The profiteers are laughing all the way to the bank, probably foreign, or crying on their way to prison.

Could there be a better time for a democratic movement that empowers people to shape the economy, instead of letting corporations shape us and our institutions?

John E. Gibson

Blooming Prairie