This is the Citizen Reagan podcast and I need to get in the habit of doing a few things with every episode, like asking you to rate and review the podcast with whatever services you use. Like asking you to share us with your friends, family, complete strangers and your worst enemies, I don’t care really, just as long as you share it. Like telling you that you can find past episodes, transcripts, research and more on a wiki on my webspace. The address for the wiki is www.poorrichardsprintshop.com/wiki but if you just visit poorrichardsprintshop.com, I have a variety of other projects there. I sell digitally restored books, magazines and pamphlets. I have constructed an archive of old pulp short stories. I accept donations through Ko-fi, if you're willing help out. It’s all there on the website. Now, with that out of the way, let's get to Reagan.

I’ve got something a little different for you today. While reading Reagan's Path to Victory, I learned the answer to a question I'd had in the back of my mind for a while. In the master list of the Radio Commentary episodes, there were a couple un-numbered entries, which left their status, to me, to be ambiguous. I had previously used this master list to help me determine which portions of the collection to purchase, without reading the bulk of the book itself, a task I have now completed. According to the notes accompanying each of these Reagan’s texts, the scripts were written and typed, but never recorded. One, about the first execution in Utah in ten years, was changed into a newspaper column and published in January 1977. The other was never used as far as is known. It was found collected with broadcasts recorded in December of 1976.

So, let's fix that. Let's record Reagan's unspoken broadcast, 44 years later. And, don't worry, I have no intention of trying to impersonate his voice.

In the interest of morale boosting and day brightening I'm going to see if I can make you feel better about this land of ours. I'll be right back.

A young executive of the Adolph Coors Co. in Colorado has found himself on the mashed potato circuit now and then speaking out for free enterprise. He's earned the right and it isn't the only way he's defended the American way.

Steve Ritchie is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and a Vietnam Veteran. One of the most highly decorated Americans in our national history he has the Air Force cross, 4 silver stars, 10 distinguished flying crosses and 24 air medals. He's a little irritated by those people who would trade what we have for a government planned and controlled economy.

He points out that our poverty line—the income level that we declare is poverty in our society, is 800% higher than the world's average income. And He emphasizes that is 800% above the world's average income, not it's poverty level.

His warning to us is summed up in his statement that, "Government controls, government regulations. and government planning are old, tired, rejected ideas that have never worked, and are not working anywhere in the world today."

Steve has inspired me to do a little comparing of our situation with that of the most planned society in the world. One of our economists once said that if a Martian spaceship should circle the world looking for the best planned economy they would pick the one that wasn‘t planned—our own.

We all know we have inflation, high prices hang over us like a cloud. They are probably more on our minds than anything else. But let's do a little looking on the bright side. That most planned country I mentioned is of course the Soviet Union.

For the comparison we have to deal in average earnings. We find the worker in Russia has to work anywhere from 2 times to 10 times as long as his American counterpart for the simple necessities of life and the occasional luxuries if they are available in Russia at all are fantastically higher than in America.

A Soviet worker puts in 3 1/2 hours for hamburger an American can earn with 34 min's. of work. For eggs it's 10 minutes in America and 97 in Russia. Apples that take 16 minutes of work here take 5 1/2 hours there. Butter takes almost 9 times as much work in the Soviet Utopia, shoes 6 times as long, soap more than 8 times. Your wife can bring home a new dress and you’ll only have to work 1/7th of the time as long as a Russian husband. That’s something to remember when she comes home with a new Easter outfit.

There is one thing where they beat us—according to the shoppers who did the comparative buying. Potatoes would take 8 minutes work in America and only 7 in Russia—except that there weren’t any potatoes available for sale in the Russian stores.

This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.

Richard Stephen Ritchie was one of five American aces (i.e. 5 or more confirmed downed enemy aircraft) of the Vietnam War. After the war, he remained active with the military and continued to fly as part of the Air Force Reserves until 1999 when he retired as a Brigadier General. As mentioned by Reagan, he was, and in fact still is, a public speaker.

It may be difficult to confirm or refute the numbers being quoted, such as the US poverty level being 800% higher than the world’s average income. I can tell you that, from all appearances, the gap between the US and the rest of the world seems to be closing, and it is the free market, not planned economies, that seem to be having the greatest impact. Since 1976, the two most populated countries in the world, China and India, have taken steps to allowing their people to accumulate and hold wealth. The collapse of socialism and communism in the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites would have also helped.

There is something I can look up right now which may be comparable to what Ritchie is saying, about American poverty vs the world's average income. There are a number of websites (one of which I found some years ago I can no longer locate) which allow you to input a yearly income amount which will tell you where you fall globally. If you make X dollars per year, it puts you into the top Y percentage in the world. Let's see how this works out. I will provide links on the wiki, poorrichardsprintshop.com/wiki.

The site I'm going to use is called "How Rich Am I?" and if you just Google that phrase, you should find it pretty easily. So, United States of America, if our income is $30,000 for one adult and zero children. We calculate it out and there's 4.7% of the world which is richer than you. Your income is more than 10.6 times the global median, with the income being shown on their graphs in household-equivalised international dollars. Ok, so $30,000 for one person, that's not too bad. But the current poverty level in the United States, according to HHS, is $12,880 for one person. Let's put that number in and calculate. People richer than you, 16.3% and your income is more than 4.6 times the global median. That’s still pretty good for the whole world. Ritchie had said, in what Reagan read, that the U.S. poverty level was 800 times higher than the world's average income. Well, based on what I just found, it appears we are 460% higher than the global median, which isn't quite the same as the average.

So, the world has made up some ground on us, but there's still room for improvement. Here's the main trouble that we in America face. We have people, including politicians, that seem hellbent on equalizing the world by bringing the U.S. down to the level of the rest of the world, rather than allowing or even helping the rest of the world to grow to our level.

Why? I'm sure there are numerous reasons. Many of these people are environmentalists, bringing the rest of the world up to our technological and social level would significantly increase the output of everything they feel is destroying the world. More pollution, more CO₂, more cars spewing exhaust. The only way for the rest of the world to be allowed to progress is if we regress. If you listened to my episodes on the Incredible Bread Machine, these politicians would most likely fall into the category of the doom-criers. Episode 29 if you want to go back for the specific reference, episodes 27-31 for the complete series on that book.[27 28 29 30 31]

Another theory worth considering is similar to something now appearing in our schools called "critical race theory." Somewhere in our history, we (meaning Americans) exploited non-Americans throughout the world. We stole resources. We stole land. We did, I don’t know, something mean. In the eyes of these people, whoever they are, we just deserve to suffer for these perceived transgressions of our forefathers. For example: there are many that claim we stole the Southwest United States from Mexico in the Mexican War. This is inaccurate. First, we captured the territory over the course of the 2 year war. Actually, we captured most of present day Mexico too. We were occupying Mexico City at the time of the end of the war. We could have, conceivably, annexed the entire thing. Second, we paid Mexico for the territory we kept.

I, personally, disagree with the assertion that we must take that step back, regardless of whether the rest of the world takes their collective step forward. You cannot strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong. It is not a zero-sum game and I firmly believe Reagan understood that.