The Golden Age Before Regulation

There was a time in America—before Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his alphabet soup of tyranny—when this nation truly soared. Banks collapsed with the regularity of fireworks on the Fourth of July, fortunes evaporated overnight, and the stock market resembled a roulette wheel tilted by God himself. This was the natural order. Investors were hunters, not house cats waiting for government kibble. If you lost everything in a pyramid scheme, well, at least you died free.

But then came Roosevelt, in his wheelchair of regulation, rolling over the delicate ecosystem of predation and collapse that made America exceptional. He wasn’t content to let strong men consolidate power, wealth, and industry; no, he had to share the pie with “ordinary citizens.” And so he unleashed his alphabet gang—SEC, FDIC, SSA—each a dagger aimed at the beating heart of American business.

The SEC: From Casino to Library

Imagine Las Vegas if you had to read a 400-page disclosure statement before you placed a bet. That’s what FDR did to Wall Street with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Before the SEC, every stockbroker was a poet, spinning stories about railroads to nowhere and mining companies with nothing but a shovel and a dream. Investors didn’t care; they wanted the thrill, the gamble. Then Roosevelt ruined it by requiring something grotesque: honesty. He shackled America’s entrepreneurs by insisting they “tell the truth” to shareholders. How many brilliant scams died in the crib because of this tyranny we’ll never know.

The FDIC: Ending the Joy of Bank Runs

Few things bonded communities more than the panic of a bank run. Picture it: dawn breaking over Main Street, neighbors shoving one another in line, grandmothers elbowing toddlers out of the way to withdraw coins from the teller before the vault slammed shut forever. It was democracy in action.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ended that. Suddenly, no matter how reckless your banker was, your money was safe. Gone was the excitement of living on the razor’s edge of insolvency. Gone was the beautiful chaos of small-town savings institutions vanishing overnight. With the FDIC, banks were expected to manage money responsibly—an outrageous expectation that sterilized American finance and made survival boringly predictable.

Social Security: The Great Bootstraps Massacre

Nothing built character like the constant dread of starving in old age. Families were closer then, because grandpa had to live in the attic and knit socks in exchange for table scraps. Roosevelt destroyed that sacred tradition with Social Security, a socialist scheme that took money from heroic industrialists and gave it to the elderly—people who had selfishly lived too long.

Instead of being a burden on their children or dying nobly in poverty, seniors began living on government checks, indulging in luxuries like food, heat, and medical care. This weakened America’s moral fiber. Why work until death when you can shuffle to the mailbox every month and steal wealth from hardworking corporations?

The Great Betrayal of Business

Roosevelt’s real crime, however, wasn’t just these programs. It was the betrayal of America’s true guardians: its corporations. He failed to grasp the fundamental truth of our Republic—that what’s good for General Electric is good for America.

If GE wanted to electrify every home, fine. If GE wanted to electrify every wallet, even better. If U.S. Steel wanted to build a monopoly large enough to smother an entire continent, that was efficiency, not oppression. If Standard Oil wanted to employ children as chimney sweeps, well, that was simply vocational training. These corporations were the saints of capitalism, and FDR treated them like sinners.

A Nation Shackled by Safety

Thanks to Roosevelt’s meddling, America has spent nearly a century shackled by safety nets. Investors can’t be properly conned, banks can’t collapse with artistic flair, and old people insist on not dying destitute in the gutter. We have stability instead of adventure, fairness instead of freedom, and prosperity spread too widely across the population. It’s tragic.

Conclusion: Undo the New Deal, Restore the Real Deal

The time has come to recognize Roosevelt not as the savior of America, but as the man who strangled it in red tape. We must dream of a freer nation—one where every dollar is at risk, every retirement a gamble, and every corporation a benevolent monarch over its loyal subjects. Bring back the bank runs. Bring back the scams. Bring back the noble death of the penniless pensioner.

Let us finally say it plainly: FDR ruined America. Only by restoring the divine right of big business can we make it great again.