[cport]

And in that case, I concede, it was in large part by government intervention... military investment and the cold war, the highway construction, and then expansion of US made consumer and industrial goods etc.

Great observation, monk, but you don't have to feel like you are conceding. Those first two are actually things the government is allowed to do constitutionally, provide for the common defense and provide for infrastructure legislatively; these can be touted and still keep your conservative bonafides. The latter part of your statement is the natural free market economic progression as a result of the former.

I get your point, just don't feel the need to hold your hat while saying it. You have been here long enough that those of us who have been freepers prior to the change in political purity testing know you are legit 😆

[cport]

And let's not forget Ike's securing of the border, another constitutionally provided for role of government. This was key, as the Dust Bowl migration to California was part of the Great Depression as America was still transitioning from an economy that still had a significant agrarian component; once the war started, all those legal migrants (US citizens) that worked California farms were replaced by illegal immigrants after they went to fight.

Returning vets needed jobs, and Ike knew that. One of the most underrated presidents of our history, surreptitiously tainted by the NWO as responsible for the Military-Industrial complex, when it was the cronyism and back dealing by those same assholes that took the legitimate acts of a president and corrupted then.