8 Ways America's Headed Back to the Robber-Baron Era

[Liberal Gramma]

8. A question for the historians in the audience

What put an end to the Gilded Age? Was it the Great Depression? WWI? Some believe it never ended, but it did abate and the middle class grew stronger and more affluent for about a generation after WWII. Another related question: if the Great Depression ended the Gilded Age, should we have let the banks fail this time? It's hard to balance the prospect of greater misery and unemployment against the prospect of the fat cats losing their money and power in a depression. WWII put an end to the depression, but it was not the war itself that ended it, but greater government spending that put people back to work. So...does that mean that the prudent course would have been to let the banks fail and put that money into stimulus spending on infrastructure?