US. a period of U.S. history in the 1870s noted for political corruption, financial speculation, and the opulent lives of wealthy industrialists and financiers.
Unhealthy & Dangerous Working Conditions. The Gilded Age saw a rise in unhealthy and dangerous working conditions. ...
Monopolies. Companies emerged during this era that sought to eliminate or get rid of competition. ...
Government & Business Corruption. The government practiced laissez faire economics.
The Gilded Age saw rapid growth in the economic disparities between workers and business owners. The wealthy lived lavishly, while the working class endured low wages and horrid conditions. (collinsdictionary.com)
LOOK CLOSELY, if you will, at the timeline for the US Gilded Age…uh-huh…it started in the 1870s and lasted until 1900. HUH, but those conditions seem as if we had been reading the headlines from today’s news outlets, and today is anywhere from 123 to 153 years later. WTF, Ya’ mean way back when Greed was as American as Apple Pie. Gluttony is as Patriotic as the red, white, and blue. Grifting is as important as Motherhood and Picket Fences. Free Markets for who, exactly, I mean it becomes way too expensive when the FREE part of Free Markets, is only geared for the very few people who own those markets. Government and Business Corruption, as in Dark Money, PACS, Pay to Play and Lobbyists, so any Politician may say he or she is working for the people, but then those people turn out to be Corporations. And “chuckle, chuckle,” indeed as we say the words “American Exceptionalism,” as in American competition is what makes us great, ummm, who you gonna compete with when way too many of the competitors have billions of dollars, hundreds of high prices attorney’s, and pockets full of Politicians.
In United States history, the Gilded Age is a term coined by Mark Twain and used by some historians to refer roughly to the period from 1877 to 1900, which occurred between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. I can only imagine Mark Twain somewhere in the universe, just shaking his head!
