PART I: THE INHERITANCE (1945-1973)

Your grandparents were not lying.

When they describe a world where one paycheck bought a house, where a pension meant security, where work led to ownership — they are reporting accurately. The skepticism you feel is not wisdom. It is the confusion of someone who has never seen functioning infrastructure trying to imagine what roads without potholes looked like.

This section documents the economy that existed before it was dismantled. Not as nostalgia. As evidence. You cannot repair a machine without knowing how it worked when it ran correctly.