Once upon a Time in America:

We were the greatest country in the world. All a young fella had to do was keep his nose clean, get a job with a good company, like GM or Ford or one of the military manufacturers, and not do something stupid to get fired, and he had a job for life. That golden age lasted from 1945 to about 1975.

Our young fella could expect to have a steadily increasing salary, a decent retirement package, health care, and the ability to educate his kids who would certainly do even better than he did. That's the way America worked. It's how things worked for him, didn't it.

Funny how that 30-year period of history has come to stand for all of American history.

Michael Luo reports on what happens to today's laid off workers in The New York Times, shedding light on what has been happening to people's incomes over time. Things generally do not get better, folks. America is the land where anyone—but most certainly NOT EVERYONE—can get rich. Few grab the golden ring.