Longing For Those Good Old Gilded Years

In April of 2025, Donald Trump had a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benajmin Netanyahu. He talked to the press and stated basically that his plan to Make America Great Again was to bring back those glorious Gilded Age years of 1870 to 1913. MAGA could stand for, “Make America Gilded Again.” He claimed that our nation was the “strongest” during that period because there was no income tax and the country supported itself on tariffs. He said that, “We had so much wealth, we didn't know what to do with our money.” What he didn’t say was, who was that “We” he mentioned.

I won’t embarrass him further with a direct copy of the text or a link to the many YouTube videos of this speech as it is largely incoherent babble. Where there is clarity, he reinforces his historical illiteracy. His inability to grasp even the simplest foundations of international economics is astounding. He promised that those countries who were “ripping us off” would pay those tariffs. Then, not two weeks later, he chastises Walmart for not eating the cost of those tariffs. How stupid does he think we are?

But getting us back to his longing for the Gilded Age, I can see where he would think this was a wonderful time to live. If you were Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, John Jacob Astor, or JP Morgan, yours was a wonderful life. During this period, those people controlled the money supply, there were wild swings in the stock market, and most industrial workers made an average of $380 to $580 annually. In 2025 dollars that equates to around $12,000 to $19,000. Many other Americans outside the industrial big cities made far less.

You can see why an Elon Musk or Donald Trump would love such a wide gap in income disparity. To them, the Gilded Age was “The Good Old Days.” No income tax and tariffs that were paid disproportionately by the poor, ensured that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. It was called gilded and not golden because the glitter was a thin layer of gold for those on top. Below that top layer there was poverty, struggle, and strife.

During this period, the richest 4,000 families (less than 1% of the population) in the US held as much wealth as the remaining 11.6 million families combined. The so-called “robber barons” amassed their billions at the expense of underpaid and overworked millions.

By comparison, in November of 2017, the 3 richest individuals in the US had as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire nation. The top 1% held 38.6% of all national wealth. So, now we have a billionaire president who has strategically placed other billionaires in his cabinet, and they are shifting the tax burden away from themselves through tariffs and using that revenue to justify corporate and personal tax cuts that mainly benefit this new ruling class. The Golden Rule is now, “He who has the gold, makes the rules.”

So, while history and international economics may not be his strong suit, listening to others talk about the wonderful Gilded Age and the fortunes amassed by a few, is like a Viagra-Cialis cocktail to our soon-to-be 79-year-old prez. Cue the Happy Days theme song. “Sunday Monday happy days, Tuesday Wednesday happy days…”