Richie: Yes, there was a time. Actually I can think of two times.

First when we were still primarily an agrarian nation. Farms fed the family and the surplus went to market.

Second was after WWII. The reason that someone could get paid well for putting the left door handle on a Chevy was because the entire rest of the planet had it's industrial base DESTROYED. Those "golden eras" were a bit of an insular fantasy - a moder-day "spoils of war", if you will. Gradually, as other countries built back up their industrial bases, we had to compete with them. We had to do more and do it with less, FOR less.

When you have no competition, you can charge what you want. But now that we've had to compete with the Europeans, then the Japanese, then the Koreans and now the Chinese and Indians (cumulatively over the decades) it's a lot more cutthroat out there.