As usual charlie likes to gemara-kup our countrys floundering situation into some sort of positive. Charlie, a little de Tocqueville would set you straight. And its a free download on Amazon. And no, the 1974 exchange rate had something very wrong. Do you remember 1974? Here in the US?
Now, while you may find single instances where government intervention may work in a limited fashion, the overwhelming evidence is that government social/economic engineering has always led to disaster. Why should we repeat the mistakes of our forebearers? Years ago the was an enormously detailed experiment done regarding this issue, it was decades long. I cant seem to remember the name of the study…. oh yes it was the USSR. The study had to be stopped due to catastrophic failure, death, and destruction. You can nit pick and choose all you like from history. The overall results wil be the same. And every few years some clown comes along and says no!! I know how to do it!! THEY didnt know how, but I do. And its always a failure. A whole line of failures in fact. Castro, Che, Chavez (why do they always have “C” names?)
As for unions, post 1950’s (possibly even earlier)they became useless bloated quasi criminal organizations, that much like our government, sucks its members dry little by little and produces no results. The protections we now enjoy regarding employment all the overtime stuff and holidays are all built into labor law. Some federal and some state. Yes, originally instigated by union activity but what have they done in the past 60 years other than wax politic and donate money to the Democratic party? Nothing, zip, nada. Your on the wrong side of history Charlie. Alexis de Tocqueville. Read him.