Conventional wisdom (and Donald Trump) blame NAFTA and other bad trade deals for the massive closing of factories and laying off of workers, as corporations moved their operations overseas. But there is another factor far more responsible for the unemployment and neighborhood destruction of the 80s and 90s. That factor is corporate downsizing. Downsizing was forced on the economy by the tidal wave of mergers and acquisitions resulting from Ronald Reagan’s emasculation of all the regulatory agencies that had been doing such a good job of keeping corporate greed in check. He literally shut down all the regulators. All this downsizing could not have taken place otherwise. Financial tycoons and corporate raiders, like a pack of hyenas, attacked the American industrial structure en masse, buying up smaller companies then the selling off their assets to pay back the loans they took out to finance the acquisition. A few of the latter-day robber barons walked away with millions in their pockets and newfound positions of power. In their wake: shuttered factories, blighted cities, and millions of ruined families. Yet how many people know this massive restructuring of the American economy was the direct result of the Reagan revolution?