There has definitely been an assault on the American people, either that or it has been an accident and our "best and brightest" are absolute ninnies. My whole life it was important to keep the dollar strong against other currencies. Until 2000 when, suddenly, the strategy became to devalue the dollar. I'm no economist, but it seems to me that that is destructive to the financial status of just about everybody in this country, excluding those the either own multi-national corporations or that have access to unlimited supplies of money.
In 1980, I was a 'believer' and a high school senior and I worked as a volunteer for the Reagan team in the election. In the primary, he campaigned on a promise to eliminate the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations/ Tri-Lateral Commission from government, and then he made Bush (a TLC and CFR member) vice-president and appointed 81 of them to high positions. He, in essence, put in control of this country a group that he had denounced for favoring the interest of international bankers and MNCs over those of the American people. He signed off on the largest tax hike in US history, and, despite his claims of being against 'big-government', the size and scope of the Federal government exploded while he was in office. He was a pretty good public speaker, and he worked well in front of the camera. And it was during his 8 years that we became a debtor nation.
For many many years we've bought into this notion of trickle down economics, which I prefer to call slop the hog economics. Because that's what it is: keep feeding the pig and what ever overflows the trough is yours, providing the hog doesn't inhale that and you, too. How anybody ever thought that running a country for the benefit of 1% and to the detriment of the other 99% was a good, sustainable idea escapes me.