The minimum wage was supposed to be enough for one person to take care of a family of four and keep them out of poverty.

Now, the minimum wage is inadequate to support a person, let alone a pet or family.

Henry Ford, the first CEO of Ford Motor Co. made 50x more than his baseline employee.

Now, a starting employee for Ford makes about $18.00 an hour, $38,000 a year. Not enough to support any family (but more than minimum wage by far)

Now the CEO of Ford made $27,000,000 a year, or about $37,000.00 an hour. That's over 700x more than a baseline employee.

(all approx. from duck duck go search)

What's really funny is that if you ask a MAGA about FDR they'll swear that FDR's policies kept the Depression going longer and it was only the massive government spending for WW2 that got the economy going again.

That particular prez also beat the shit out of nazis. As opposed to, you know, hiring them.

FDR wasn't a democratic socialist and was only a social democrat by our current absolutely fucked standards but sure whatever everyone just lies about everything anyways why not.

FDR’s signature policy for his fourth term was going to be riding his popularity from winning the war to pass a second, economic Bill of Rights, enshrining a constitutional right to housing, a fair wage, etc. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive to pursue it, and Truman had less than zero interest.

FDR’s former VP, Henry Wallace, would have gone even further, but he was replaced by Truman.

FDR was a social democrat and the reason his social policy didn't stick around is because he compromised with racists and allowed them to condition the passing of welfare policy on the exclusion of black and brown Americans from receiving any benefits, and he also did not sufficiently challenge the power of capitalist property owners. When the civil rights movement began to see success in forcing the universalization of social welfare the still-powerful capitalists were able to ride the wave of the racist backlash towards the near-total dismantling of the welfare state.

While FDR was popular, he was a social democrat. Welfare under capitalism is not socialism, it's just welfare, and the welfare the US received was largely built from colonial holdings and imperialist plunder. Socialism isn't just having decent welfare, it's an entirely new economic system where the base of society is determined by social ownership of production and distribution. The only reason FDR was even allowed to pass these social reforms was because, at the time, economic unrest was high and workers could look to a largely unaffected and growing USSR for inspiration. The New Deal was a concession made to an organized working class, and the source was largely imperialist super-profits, ensuring both capitalists and workers could domestically be happy (assuming you were white). They exported the contradictions of society to the global south.

That make you go "Hmm..." until you think about them for a few seconds. The fact FDR implemented progressive social policies isn't why the 22nd Amendment was ratified. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson established a convention of a maximum two terms by declining to run for a third.

Just like a lot of laws, the 22nd Amendment was written when someone finally violated a long-observed norm. Four terms in a row (without a definite end, even, as Roosevelt died early in his fourth term) was wildly outside the norm and forced politicians to confront formal term limits instead of unspoken, honors system ones.

The only states that voted to reject the 22nd were Oklahoma and Massachusetts.

Congress was more partisan, mainly being Republicans and southern Democrats voting in favor. This was pre-Southern Strategy, and the GOP was more complicated. With Truman (FDR's former VP) on the backfoot when Congress was deciding on the 22nd, it's pretty obvious why there'd be a partisan split—with the amendment existing because of FDR, whose popularity the Democratic Party were still riding off of.

Personally, I think we will need to completely replace the economic system. Our norms are based on technical debt inherited from millennia of practice, with every great social hierarchy designed to make the ordinary person most useful to the wealthiest. Starting over, with a clean sheet design - new currency, new laws, new organizations, and new expectations, is the way forward.

For example, what if workers could vote on who their boss is, and be able to set the pay of said bosses every three months? What if there was a hard 40 hour cap on workhours per week, with fixed pay per hour? What if tipping was outlawed nationwide, and delivery drivers had their fuel costs covered by employers? What if there was an absolute cap on income, wealth, and assets, to prevent the existence of moguls?

We should just throw out our existing structures, because they are piles of bullshit.

Term limits were absolutely instated because conservatives were afraid of the fact that people made FDR president for life, and the New Deal was too pinko for them.

That said, FDR was not in any way a Socialist. And even if he was, no Socialist should be wanting to emulate a man who put Japanese people in concentration camps.

FDR was absolutely not a democratic socialist. He was a social democrat. He favored concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US was way behind Europe because the USSR showed workers everywhere what was possible and the US purged them all and sent them back to Europe, and the European bourgeoisie had to make concessions to the working class to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing capitalism. The US thought it had defended against this possibility with purges, but then the business cycle showed up and crashed the US economy, taking down the rest of the world with it. And they thought they could ride it out and let the working class suffer. But there was a real risk of class consciousness emerging and thus FDR presided over concessions to keep the people pacified

Republicans today wouldn't mind most FDR policies. The goalposts never stop moving.

People also seem to forget that FDR was a compromise position and that even he tried a few times to sell people out.

So sick of people glazing FDR. He seized the property of 100,000 innocent Americans and threw them in concentration camps. Fuck FDR.

The 25th amendment was a mistake.

Game it out. Every president after Roosevelt resigned or lost re election until Reagan, who had severe altzheimers. Clinton would have been the first 3 term president, and probably 4 terms. No citizen united, no Bush v Gore. A dem Supreme Court. No war in Iraq.

Sure, a republican probably wins in 2008, but the country would have been on a much, much better footing. The 25th amendment was a mistake.