The modern USSA needs to be looked at in terms of its regression (not progress) since the Federal Reserve was put into place in 1913 and income tax was introduced. Less than two decades later and the US Government was already bankrupt. The only way it could salvage itself in 1933 was to confiscate much of the real wealth (gold coins and bullion) of its citizenry and devalue the dollar. This was bankruptcy #1.