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WWII

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America’s Post-War Apex: A Historical Anomaly?

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After WWII, the U.S. emerged as:

  • The only major industrial power untouched by war.

  • A nation with massive infrastructure, natural resources, and a unified workforce.

  • The global supplier of everything—from steel and cars to consumer goods and food.

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Europe and Asia were in ruins. The U.S. didn’t just win the war; it inherited the world’s demand. That era of dominance, roughly 1945 to 1975, was extraordinary, but arguably unsustainable.

 

Rightsizing- Back to Pre-War Reality

 

Before WWII:

  • The U.S. was deeply unequal, with widespread poverty and labor unrest.

  • The Great Depression had shattered confidence in capitalism.

  • Manufacturing was strong, but not dominant globally.

  • Infrastructure and education were uneven, and social safety nets were minimal.

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The post-war boom was a historical blip, not a baseline. And now, with globalization, automation, and geopolitical shifts, the United States is returning to a more competitive, fragmented, and vulnerable position, closer to where it stood before its mid-20th-century apex.​

Today, nearly 30% of Americans rely on government assistance. That’s not far off from the breadlines of the Great Depression, just better disguised by bureaucracy and digital infrastructure. We have more safety nets, yes, but we also have more systemic dependency. The illusion of stability masks deep inherent structural defects, a system design to ultimately fail in disaster. 

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We need to ask ourselves, why does this keep happening?

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The post-war boom was a historical blip, not a baseline. With globalization, automation, and geopolitical shifts, the United States is returning to a more competitive, fragmented, and vulnerable position, closer to where it stood before its mid-20th-century apex.

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And just like in the 1920s, wealth is once again dangerously concentrated.

Wealth Concentration: Then and Now

  • In 1929, the top 0.1% of Americans owned as much wealth as the bottom 42%.

  • The top 10% controlled over 80% of the stock market.

  • Speculation, debt, and inequality created a fragile economy that collapsed into the Great Depression.

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Fast forward to 2025:

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  • The top 1% now hold nearly 30% of all U.S. household wealth.

  • The top 10% control over 67% of the nation’s total wealth, 93% of all stocks.

  • The bottom 50% own just 2.5%—a level of disparity that rivals the 1920s.

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​We’ve added safety nets since the Great Depression, but the underlying imbalance persists. Our systems are designed to manage poverty, not eliminate it. Meanwhile, the pursuit of profit and personal power has taken precedence over the greater good- again eclipsing the interests of the nation and its people.

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As a retired engineer, I see this not just as a political or economic crisis, but as a design problem. An old and very flawed and corrupt system from the onset. And when the foundation is flawed, patching the roof won’t save the house.

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That’s why I believe STEM and vocational education are more than just career pathways, they’re tools for national renewal. We need a generation that understands how systems work, how to build resilient infrastructure, how to solve real-world problems, and how to think critically about the world they’re inheriting.

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We may not return to post-war dominance. But we can build a society that’s stable, skilled, prosperous, and self-reliant. That starts with education, not just in science and technology, but in history, civics, and ethics. It starts with questioning the blueprint, not just following it.

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Why This Matters for STEM and Vocational Education

 

If we’re “rightsizing,” then the question becomes: How do we rebuild, to stabilize, empower, and thrive?

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STEM and vocational education are key because:

  • They equip people with the necessary skills to adapt to a quickly changing world.

  • They rebuild domestic capability in manufacturing, energy, and infrastructure.

  • They restore dignity to work that’s practical, essential, and best suited to meet challenges, and opportunities of today and tomorrow.

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We may not return to post-war dominance, but we can build a resilient, skilled, prosperous society.

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