swept it's floors, this country offered you a basic bargain. a sense that your hard work would be rewarded with fair wages and descent benefits, a chance to buy a home and save for retirement and most of all, a chance to hand out a better life for your kids. but over time that engine ban to stall and a lot of folks here saw it. that bargain began to fray. technology made some jobs obsolete. global competition sent a lot of jobs overseas. it became harder for unions to hire the middle class. smaller minimum wage increases for the working poor.