And then there was the saving of the US auto industry - but, you know, nothing of note.

Tesla success shows what a bad investment the GM/Chrysler bailout was:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2013/07/28/tesla-success-...

I'm a huge fan of Tesla, but GM/Chrysler wasn't just about the vehicles. It was about the employees, the economies in that part of the country, and the ripple effect that killing off American auto-makers would have had to every industry they touched.

I truly hope what Tesla is doing becomes the future of the American auto-industry, but the nation was in no position, at that time, to facilitate that transformation in a way that was logistically, economically, or politically acceptable.

What do you know about social policies of the biggest empires from a few centuries ago?

Such stuff is lost in noise after a few centuries, only people from the country where it happened learn about it, often not even that.