SIlver or lead was something Pablo Escobar liked to say. It means do what I want and I will give you money (plata) if you don’t I will use lead to kill someone close to you. I just noticed that it is the Spanish translation of a debate the US should have about the apparent failure of the Great Society (Johnson;s expansion of the New Deal).
In the conventional analysis the hero is Clinton (if one is a moderate Democrat) Reagan (as always, if one is a Republican). The story is that over generous social welfare caused people to treat the safety net as a hammock with very serious long-term consequences. The evidence for this is the dramatic increase in violent crime, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy which began in the 60s and continued until around
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