If I knew how to do it, I would add the clip of Elvis singing "Kentucky Woman!"
Yes, November is nigh. Thank you for this good old-fashioned "talking-to". And what your OP says is exactly what is explained in Hedrick Smith's Who Stole the AMERICAN DREAM!" Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to pick this book up and read it. I guarantee you it's an easy read and you'll be done with it in no time. Go to your library. If they don't have it, tell them to use the inter-library loan system to get it for you. They will call you when it comes in. Go get it immediately, as if you don't come and get it within a few days, they will send it back. OR purchase it on Amazon.com or ABEBooks.com, or whatever online bookstore you use. Search around and I'm sure you can get it almost for a song now, as it's out in trade paperback. It was published in 2012 by Random House. Smith takes you from 1970s right up to 2012 and explains everything, all in one book. No more searching around for different books to try to get to the bottom of the mess this country is in.
He tells you, to a person, who led this country down this rosy path. It was in a document entitled "The Powell Memorandum," written in 1971 by Lewis Powell, a renown corporate lawyer, who was appointed to the Supreme Court two months later by Richard M. Nixon. (I guess he wasn't seated until after he was confirmed by the Senate, in 1972.)
"We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~~ Louis D. Brandeis