The Great Depression of 1932-34 made America look much older and more primitive as opposed to the 21st-century United States. It put a halt to American economic growth (and, indeed, most other large economies as well). By 1933, only 4.6% of the population (not including blacks, Mexicans, or those living in countries that lacked U.S. borders) lived in America (the richest country in the world). By 1936, it was up to 8.2% (and then another 5.2% in the 1980s). By 1977, the amount of wealth in the country had fallen to $5.3Trillion, which in 1970 was equivalent to 15% of U.S. GDP. In 1980, before the Great Recession hit, the amount of money in circulation was $28.5Trillion. In 2016, it has fallen to $23.3Trillion - as much as the GDP of Mexico ($7.5Trillion) has fallen since 2000, the year the Great Recession hit. A single stock market bubble could take $100 billion worth of wealth from one people, and then, for all intents and purposes, nobody would be rich. It is not too late to avoid this. But the problem does not end there. When a bubble appears, the "trickle down" effect of these stock-market bubbles is devastating in the short term. They can add millions of barrels of oil and gasoline and send the price of many goods down in value, and this can have disastrous effects on our economy for years. The current stock market bubble is not an isolated case, nor is it an isolated crash or bubble. We see how this manifests on our shores. We have seen it with the stock market crash that wiped $20 trillion out in 2008. Today, the Great Recession has led to the worst economic slump since 1930, and at its peak, global unemployment was over 20%. Even if the economy does finally return to growth, we are not on the road to recovery. So how do the wealthy respond to this? They exploit the crisis to increase their profits and power and control the economic system they used to control in the first place. This is the reason why the oligarchs have been able to push their agendas forward through corruption. It is also the reason they have been able to exploit others for years, and to create an illusion of wealth and success. They have given themselves greater control over the economic and political systems of their countries, which are meant for ordinary people as opposed to a
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