Once upon a time...

Time for bed son.

But you promised me a story Daddy!

Yes I did…

There once was a country called America.

It was started by a bunch of rich white guys who were upset about their taxes.

Eventually they became the most powerful country in the world when the rest of the powerful countries darn near destroyed themselves.

The rich and powerful Americans saw a lot of opportunity to plunder the planet. They stopped a lot of other countries from developing self-sufficiency through either war or debt. Their wars were fought to make the other peoples free. The debt was created to make the other peoples prosperous.

It was called free market capitalism and democracy and it was good.

But then there was a war that America lost. The war was very expensive and the American people didn’t approve of it.

So rich and powerful Americans had to change the way they used war and debt to plunder.

They started to use debt to make their own people more prosperous and to make wars less messy.

But the wars were very expensive and their prosperous people became more and more indebted to their prosperity.

Prosperity got out of control and the free market crashed.

So the rich and powerful Americans created more debt and launched more wars.

But the free market crashed again.

So the rich and powerful Americans decided that the free market had to be abandoned in order to save it. They created all the debt they could in order to protect their riches and their power. Eventually they couldn’t afford the wars. Eventually they couldn’t afford the debt.

The people became very upset.

And a bunch of rich folks, not just, but mostly, white men (guess that’s progress!), became very very upset about their taxes.

THE END.

Is that all Daddy?

What happened to America?

Well son, that’s exactly what folks began to ask themselves.

But the real America was less of a place than an ideal and lots of folks in lots of other countries aspired to that same ideal.

So America went global as did their prosperity. And although times in the old country might be hard right now at least we have a chance to pursue the American dream.

Now it’s time to go to sleep son you need to be well rested for your exam tomorrow if you want to join the cadre.

Sweet dreams.